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An old question asked in the article Bird_conservation

In the session Other threats, it mentioned that there are almost a billion birds are killed per year due to the collisions with structure and a user asked this questions for almost 4 years without an answer. I am also curious about this claim and if anyone could help to clarify this statement. Thank you very much.--Lokionly (talk) 08:04, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Original statement:
I think the claim that almost a billion birds per year are killed as a result of collisions with structures requires some sourcing. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, as they say. Unless that's just a missing decimal point I don't see there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.32.55.142 (talk) 12:03, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Seems like there are estimates that go up to that figure (billion here meaning 109 and not 1012) - see http://www.wisconsinbirds.org/collisionsbirds.htm http://www.fws.gov/birds/mortality-fact-sheet.pdf Shyamal (talk) 09:07, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Found the actual estimation source - here is the extract from Daniel Klem, Jr. (1990) Collissions between birds and windows: mortality and prevention. Journal of Field Ornithology 61(l):120-128: Shyamal (talk) 09:21, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

"One annual estimate of avian mortality resulting from strikes is 3.5 million for the United States alone (Banks 1979). This figure is based on the assumption that 1 bird is killed per square mile of land per year. My findings of multiple windowkills at several man-made structures of various types in urban, suburban, and rural settings, throughout every season, and under almost every weather condition suggest this is an extremely low figure. Admittedly no less speculative, I offer an alternative based on the criteria that 1 to 10 birds are killed per building per year in the U.S. Attempting to be conservative, I used U.S. Bureau of Census (1986) data and estimated the number of U.S. buildings by assuming each housing unit (93,519,000), commercial building (3,948,000), and school (96,626) equated to 1 building each; this yields an annual windowkill toll of 97.6 to 975.6 million birds. The estimate is fundamentally speculative because it assumes U.S. buildings that kill no birds are compensated for by those that kill many."

Identification of three birds

(edit conflict) Anyone able to identify what species these birds are? -- Cheers, Riley 03:30, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

  • Unidentified bird
    Unidentified bird
  • Scarlet Macaw
    Scarlet Macaw
  • Blue and yellow Macaw
    Blue and yellow Macaw
  • Image of birds to help identify species of File:Ara ambiguus at Paradise Village Resort.jpg
    Image of birds to help identify species of File:Ara ambiguus at Paradise Village Resort.jpg
For definite:
3 = Scarlet Macaw
4 = Blue-and-yellow Macaw
As for number two, it could either be the Military Macaw or the Great Green Macaw. Both are superficially similar and distinguishable only by size (as far as I'm aware). --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 03:36, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Great green has generally more reddish feathers on the bare skin region, so I suggest Military macaw. Other differences are found in the tail feathers. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 04:20, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
Is there a difference in the eye color? Military seem to have a more yellow eye (and this one too) than the Great Green and its bluish one, but I may be wrong. Totodu74 (talk) 18:16, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Please always include the location of the birds, partly to help identification and categorisation. If they are in a zoo, than it may be possible to find out what parrots the zoo keep. It may be easy to find out more on the internet; however, when I have not found anything specific, I have sometimes resorted to phoning zoos in the UK to find out what parrots they keep to help to determine the identification of parrots in zoo photographs. Snowman (talk) 10:16, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Red-winged blackbird & marsh wren

I know this question is probably best suited to be asked in the article’s discussion, which I have already done with no answers so far, but I thought that perhaps some of you could help me with this. I’ve read in that article that this bird’s nest predators include the marsh wren. Although I’ve seen in several papers that the marsh wren is listed as a common nest predator in red-winged blackbirds’ nests, that probably doesn’t mean that they feed on their eggs and/or chicks. In fact, marsh wrens eat mainly insects, spiders and snails. Couldn’t it be that the wrens simply steal nesting materials from red-winged blackbirds’ nests to build theirs? If so, it should probably be clarified. --Pablo.ea.92 (talk) 15:57, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I think you're right that it needs to be clarified. BNA on line, in the article about Marsh Wrens (dated 1997), says nothing about them eating eggs or chicks and nothing about them stealing nest material. What exactly do these papers say? Are they available on line? —JerryFriedman (Talk) 18:30, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
I see there are two sources on this at Red-winged Blackbird, but they're Web pages that I wouldn't call reliable. Incidentally, I don't think stealing nest material would be called "predation". It's more like kleptoparasitism. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 18:39, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
However, the BNA account for Red-winged Blackbird says that Marsh Wrens are a major predator of eggs and chicks. "Principal nest predators include raccoon, mink (Mustella vison), Black-billed Magpie (Pica pica), and Marsh Wren (Cistothorus palustris). Marsh Wrens may puncture eggs or kill young without eating them (Picman 1977). Hawks and owls take adults (Orians 1980, Nero 1984)." So I imagine the information should stand, perhaps with BNA as the source! MeegsC (talk) 20:36, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Here's the link to the abstract of the Picman paper, which says Marsh Wrens were the major nest predator in their study of Red-winged Blackbird nests. MeegsC (talk) 21:08, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Very interesting. My mistake (aside from not looking at the Red-winged Blackbird article) was assuming this "predation" was for food and not looking at the BNA section on "Social And Interspecific Behavior", which goes into some detail. Apparently Marsh Wrens, especially males, destroy the eggs and kill the chicks of their own species and others—attacks on Yellow-headed Blackbird and Least Bittern nests have been observed. The purpose is apparently to reduce competition for food, though the wrens do drink some of the egg contents. I'll add this information this weekend if no one else does. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 20:50, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

New Flickr contributor

I found a contributor to Flickr with appropriate licenses who we don't seem to have been borrowing images from before. Sussexbirder has images from a few places we're underrepresented in. I notice this as he has a bunch of parrotbills we don't have, in fact his entire China set is pretty good. Sabine's Sunbird talk 00:27, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Old World babblers

Hey everybody! First off, I'm back, after a year off Wikipedia. Oddly enough I now work as a writer/editor/business analyst, so I should be able to contribute more helpfully to reviews. Anyway, I was wondering if we wanted to do something with the Old World babblers. We've taken the plunge with the Old World warblers, and the break up of the babblers seems fairly well established now, at least with regards to the obvious outliers. That said, perhaps not... Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:57, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Welcome back - with a prefix/suffix of some letters to your name I hope :) - the downside of all the molecular phylogenetics is that all shared-common-traits are molecular and finding morphological/behavioural features common to a group is increasingly becoming impossible - and so one has to talk about a whole bunch of genera or species - when one has not upgraded the species articles themselves. For many of us without access to sources like the HBW, the only playing ground are articles at the rank of species. Shyamal (talk) 04:27, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
Awww, I don't know. Psittaciformes have gotten a whole bunch clearer recently. Yeah, welcome back anyway. Regarding that page's assumptions, I'd be happy with whiteeyes as a subfamily even with a early miocene split. That isn't particularly long ago. Many genera splits are older than this. Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:57, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
Does anyone have a copy of this I could read? Perhaps if we split out the oddities that don't belong with the babblers I could used the HBW to write about the core babblers per the study and leave the majority of the family unsplit. Sabine's Sunbird talk 00:45, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
Yes - I can. What email address are you using. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:45, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
The usual gmail one. Sabine's Sunbird talk 02:40, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
Sent now Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:34, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. I've had a look and it seems the way to go would be to follow their recommendations, namely retaining three families, the babblers, the white-eyes and the slyvid-babblers (Sylvidae), remove all the totally unrelated species to their correct families (long past time we accpeted Pnoepyga). The most elegant thing about this solution is that we basically already do this, since we never split out the babblers and kept the white-eyes and Sylvid-babblers. It would be nice to work on the main babbler article, which is a bit taxo-heavy. Sabine's Sunbird talk 02:44, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Locked Pages

..........Pvmoutside (talk) 12:00, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Done, aside from the following...
--Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 23:17, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Proliferating Goldcrests

Prompted by today's Main Page FA, I went a-browsing among the Regulidae articles and noticed that as well as a nice full FA-standard Goldcrest article, we have stubs for Tenerife Goldcrest, Western Canary Islands Goldcrest, Sao Miguel Goldcrest, Western Azores Goldcrest and Santa Maria Goldcrest. This feels a bit over the top to me. Any thoughts? SP-KP (talk) 14:53, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

At one stage I thought of doing an FT on the Regulidae. I wrote FAs for Firecrest, Goldcrest and today's bird, but then decided my NAm and Taiwan sources (at the time) were not good enough to complete the task. If I'd continued, I would have changed the stubs to redirects, since they add little if anything. I don't think they are IOC species, so that's probably still the best option Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:42, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

How to write a good higher taxon article?

It has been suggested that I should try to bring raphinae to GA, so that the subfamily could become a "featured topic". But I haven't written such before, and the other featured topics we have are about extant birds, so it's a bit hard to compare. Sources that treat the two member species together are rare, so I'm afraid that such an article would become "synthesis" in a way. Any suggestions on how to handle it? FunkMonk (talk) 05:06, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I can't see that the principle is different from an FT for extant birds. Having written the other bird FTs, I'd say that the higher taxon article is usually going to be shorter on content than the species. which is why it (usually) is only a GA. There tends to be more emphasis on taxonomy in the higher taxon article, and it's worth poking around looking for earlier/different treatments and reasons for any changes. I can see what you mean about synthesis, but any higher taxon article has some element of this. In practice, unless your FT is clearly constructed on an artificial basis, FTC won't challenge on synthesis. Animal taxa are generally straightforward from that point of view.
I've currently got articles at FAC and GAN to complete a Phedina FT. The two species have no geographical overlap, have some major differences in behaviour, and one is sometimes placed in a different genus. This is a similar situation to the successful Crex FT, which had no problems, so whatever other difficulties may arise, I wouldn't expect synthesis to be one of them. Serious challenges at FTC tend to be about whether there are missing articles, clearly not a concern here.
You'll need a navbox for the three articles, and I'd strongly suggest redoing the Dodo map if you are going to put the two maps together in the Raphinae article, since they are pretty divergent in style at present. Go for it! Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:54, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks a lot! I'll certainly use your comment as guidance once I get around to it. FunkMonk (talk) 13:55, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Snowy Egret - OTRS question

Would someone please take a look at this question, thanks: Talk:Snowy Egret#Weight question at OTRS.--ukexpat (talk) 18:32, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 19:53, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
Thank you--ukexpat (talk) 20:27, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Icterid

I disagree with the naming convention (using "formal, common" names) at least in this instance: "Icterid" instead of Icteridae. First of all, there is no such thing as a "formal common" name. That's why we have the binomial naming convention. "Common" names are not common at all. Who among the great unwashed calls any common bird they see an Icterid? This article needs to be renamed to reflect the scientific family name. Thank you for your consideration. Scientists need to assert their taxonomic rights. Nickrz (talk) 14:11, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Invalid bird taxa

What should we do with articles about bird taxa which became recently invalid, e.g. Double-banded Argus or Bluntschli's Vanga? I think it would be better to remove at leat the taxobox from the article --Melly42 (talk) 15:36, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I see. But we should expand the articles about the Great Argus and the White-throated Oxylabes with a special section (Taxonomical history) --Melly42 (talk) 12:24, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
If they really are invalid,they should be merged, but from reading the articles, it seems there's no conclusive evidence. FunkMonk (talk) 16:12, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
Both taxa have been removed from the list of valid bird taxa by the IOC in 2011 and 2012. There are two studies from 2009 (G. W. H. Davison & Phil McGowan: Asian enigma: Is the Double-banded Argus Argusianus bipunctatus a valid species? In: BirdingASIA 12, 2009.) and 2013 (Fjeldså, Mayr, Jønsson & Irestedt 2013. On the true identity of Bluntschli's Vanga Hypositta perdita Peters, 1996, a presumed extinct species of Vangidae. Bull. BOC 133 (1): 72–75.) which conclude that the Doubled-banded argus should be synonymized with the Great Argus due to the fact that the Double-banded argus feather might be from an aberrant Great Argus. According to the two specimens of the Bluntschli's Vanga, Jon Fjelsä and his colleagues made a genetic analyses and they came to the conclusion that the two specimens are most similar to the White-throated Oxylabes and not to the Nuthatch Vanga as previously thought. So analogue to Sporophila zelichi and Laniarius liberatus we should merge the invalid species with the synonymous taxa --Melly42 (talk) 16:41, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
Well, then I think they should be merged, and those new papers be cited. FunkMonk (talk) 16:57, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
Alternatively we could create a new article: List of doubtful und invalid birds --Melly42 (talk) 17:10, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
I wouldn't see that as an alternative, just an addition. All the info would have to be moved in any case, and the invalid name redirect to the valid one. FunkMonk (talk) 17:12, 10 March 2013 (UTC)
We have gone with taxobox removal for notable non-species like Intermediate Parakeet which simply defy any merger. Shyamal (talk) 06:12, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
Well, we could do the same with other bird taxa, e.g. Mariana Mallard, which is actually a hybrid and the Coues' Gadwall, which is considered as invalid by many authorities too. --Melly42 (talk) 12:24, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
Remember that notability is not temporary. If a taxa was once believed to be valid, and has sufficient citations to be a valid article, then maintaining the article should be what is done, IMHO. If it's just a stub, of course, merging into the actual taxa with a "once believed..." would work. - The Bushranger One ping only 23:41, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
The issue is not notability, but accuracy. Yes, an invalid species is notable, but that does not mean it should be kept separate from its senior synonym. But hybrids are of course an exception, since they could not be merged to a single article. But I think such could be merged to the genus level at least (if they are not inter-generic). FunkMonk (talk) 23:49, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
Interesting news. If we go after Snyder & Fry 2013. Validity of Bartram’s Painted Vulture (Aves: Cathartidae). Zootaxa 3613(1): 61–82. Bartram's Painted Vulture seems to be not so invalid as previously thought. But we should strongly devide between hypothetical birds (which include the Painted Vulture) and doubtful/invalid taxa --Melly42 (talk) 11:35, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

List of birds of Louisiana

Should this be deleted until someone wants to recreate it seriously? Maias (talk) 13:49, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Why not just leave an "expand" tag on it...you never know.....Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:56, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Okay - can't hurt... Maias (talk) 14:24, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
The guy only started it a couple of days ago and he put this on the talk page. Is there any reason to believe that he won't be back to add to it? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 16:33, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Indeed I hope he does. The reason I was somewhat dubious is that he was adding to the initial codes for bird status such things as:
"(U) - Upcoming, birds that will exist in Louisiana in the future." and
"*(My) - Mythological, myths say that the bird exists in Louisiana, even though it isn't in Louisiana"
which I removed, even though they were mildly amusing and did not, in my opinion, constitute serious vandalism. Maias (talk) 00:11, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

FAC/GAN news

The following bird article are currently at FAC or GAN

Jimfbleak - talk to me? 08:04, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Birds for identification (154)

Squacco. Maias (talk) 11:51, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
Squacco Heron moved back to File:Ardeola ralloides -Lake Ravelobe, Ankarafantsika National Park, Madagascar-8.jpg. There is a big mess-up on Commons with the appearance of a duplicate named File:Malagasy Pond Heron, Lake Ravelobe, Ankarafantsika National Park, Madagascar.jpg, which is used on an a lot of different Wikis on Malagasy Pond Heron (Ardeola idae) pages. I have asked for the wrongly named duplicate to be deleted, which should remove it from pages across many Wikis. Snowman (talk) 12:08, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Birds for identification (153)

  • I see what you mean about the beak, so I have put it in the "Unidentified birds" category on Commons. If you follow links on flickr, it says that the author welcomes inquires about bird identification on his website. Snowman (talk) 14:05, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Dick did write back, and clouded the issue even more: "Hello Steve:

I tried to reply this morning through another email, but it likely got lost. I was also concerned that the bill was not curved enough for an earthcreeper, but managed to convince myself that it was the the angle from which the photo was taken. Any other suggestions? Most of the photos which I am running under the nose of EOL have latitude and longitude attached, but a few such of this one were taken from earlier slides which were not indexed. It could be anywhere in Chile or Argentina. Sorry about that."

Keeping the above in mind, I will review the ID, but I will have to do it using all the comp photos in my DB. Maybe tomorrow.Steve Pryor (talk) 08:37, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I recall that I got the location of Peru from the photographers website, where there image is also shown. Is this location wrong? Snowman (talk) 00:51, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Brown Jay Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 18:18, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
I do not know why this one has a partly yellow beak. Is it a juvenile? Snowman (talk) 20:30, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
My Mexico book says the bill remains all or partially yellow for 2 years. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 14:40, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
Moved to File:Psilorhinus morio -Costa Rica -immature-8.jpg. I have not got a book for birds of that part of the world. Now described as a sub-adult. Shown on en-Wiki species page. Snowman (talk) 17:15, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
According to this, (bottom of page 167, top of 168) it's a Yellow-capped Pygmy Parrot. MeegsC (talk) 20:13, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
I find that part of the old book difficult to understand. Pictures that I have seen of Yellow-capped Pygmy Parrots do not match this bird. I have not found a species consistent with a small green parrot with a bluish face and a yellow-tipped tail. Could it be an obscure sub-species? Snowman (talk) 10:45, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Our Micropsitta page lists at least four subspecies for that species; this one is the first one listed (chloroxantha, which means yellow-green). MeegsC (talk) 21:09, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
See File:NasiternaPygmaeaFKeulemans.jpg, where the author assigns a Yellow-capped Pygmy Parrot to the Nasiterna genus. Why would he use the Trichoglossus genus for the same species? Snowman (talk) 21:27, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Have you looked through the book I linked to? They didn't have a clue where these pygmy-parrots belonged. At some point, they even lumped them all into Psittacus; now, only the African Grey Parrot is in that genus. Over the years, they've been put into several other genera (Nasiterna among them). Now, they're all in Micropsitta. Part of it was that this subspecies was originally described as a different species. MeegsC (talk) 21:36, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
I looked at the parts of the pages that you pointed to, but it did not mention Trichoglossus. See File:NasiternaPygmaeaKeulemans.jpg, which is another painting where he used the Nasiterna genus. Snowman (talk) 21:43, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
See pages 31 to 31; It is said to be similar to Trichoglossus placens and Trichoglossus palmarum. I think it is a Charmosyna species (or something closely related), some of which look very similar to the picture to me. Snowman (talk) 22:26, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Okay. ID it however you want. I'm no parrot expert, and was using the only scientific reference I could find that showed where taxonomists had decided it belonged. MeegsC (talk) 14:42, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps, I should have made it clearer above that Trichoglossus placens and Trichoglossus palmarum are both listed in the linked external web-pages as old synonyms for species of what we now call the Charmosnya genus. More opinions would be welcome to advance the discussion towards accurate identification. Snowman (talk) 20:06, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Square-tailed Drongo Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 11:57, 11 February 2013 (UTC) =
Nope. Northern Black Flycatcher. It's the wrong shape for a drongo; the tail's far too long, for one thing and the posture is different. Plus, Square-tailed Drongo is a rare bird in The Gambia, known only from a few forest locations upriver. MeegsC (talk) 13:21, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Oops. Thanks for correction. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 16:25, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Moved to File:Melaenornis edolioides -Banjul, Gambia-8.jpg on Commons. Selected as the infobox image on en-Wiki species page. Snowman (talk) 18:15, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Looks like Pipile sp. I don't know how to tell them apart, especially since I can't see the wattle color. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 20:06, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Some one on Commons identified it as Blue-throated Piping Guan (Pipile cumanensis). Moved to File:Pipile cumanensis -Zoo de la Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina -head-8.jpg on Commons. Snowman (talk) 19:59, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
Water Pipit. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 09:29, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
How did you distinguish it from other members of its genus? Snowman (talk) 16:30, 24 February 2013 (UTC)
The comment on the Flickr page agrees "Pipit spioncelle" but I guess that's not evidence! First impression of grey and white; lack of streaking on back; fringes and malar white rather than buff. That white narrows it down to Rock or Water. Montane habit in inland southern France (Plateau de Beille) is out of range for Rock which would be darker anyway. QED. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 20:41, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
An internuptial Water Pipit should have a supercilium right? looks like an Eurasian Rock Pipit here, it could be useful to see the malar streak and the breast. Totodu74 (talk) 14:36, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
It is tricky but the location is way out of range for Rock Pipit. See this map, for example, compared with the given location. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 15:50, 25 March 2013 (UTC)


Def a saltator. Natureguy1980 (talk) 15:51, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Looks most like Grayish Saltator, but lacks the expected pale eyebrow and dark malar. Not sure what else it could be, though. Natureguy1980 (talk) 15:57, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
The name of the file in Katakana is the title of the Japanese wikipedia article on Horornis borealis = Cettia canturians which does occur in on the southern Japanese islands. The location on the file (in Kanji) is Hegurajima. The rufous crown looks good for that species. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 20:02, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
O. bakkamoena Shyamal (talk) 11:23, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Can you explain, please? Regards, PurpleHz (talk) 16:51, 23 March 2013 (UTC)
A characteristic of bakkamoena is the ear-tuft appearing two-toned, the margin being dark as also of the facial disk. The iris is dark (sunia has yellow). lettia has a pale bill tip and out of range and habitat (only Himalayan). Calls would have been distinctive. I think this particular roost in Bharatpur is well known and much photographed. Shyamal (talk) 03:10, 24 March 2013 (UTC)]]
Indian Scops Owl moved to File:Otus bakkamoena -Bharatpur, Rajasthan, India.jpg on Commons and file description enhanced.
Thank you! PurpleHz (talk) 15:29, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Locked Pages

I made it through the entire IOC Master List (except extinct species). The following are locked:

.......................Pvmoutside (talk) 14:46, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Well done, a sterling effort. All above moved over redirects Jimfbleak - talk to me? 14:58, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Jim for all your help....Pvmoutside (talk) 18:00, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Quail to Talk:Old World Quail

Looks like user Christian75 moved the Talk:Quail page to be a redirect to the Talk:Old World Quail page. It should be reverted since they are both separate topics.....Can someone help? I'd do it, but I don't believe I can.....Pvmoutside (talk) 20:45, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I have given Quail a new talk page, with a project tag, instead of the revert. Not sure whether the content of the moved page should be at Talk:Quail or Talk:Old World quail. I have also classified Quail as a list since it is not a taxonomic group and the page is principally a list of those various birds known as quail. I guess it could also be a dab page. Feel free to revert anything you disagree with. Maias (talk) 00:05, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
I had a look before. It's been moved in the past so many times that trying to figure out where the page currently located at Talk:Old World quail belongs is making my head hurt. :) --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 00:35, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Source help

I am thinking about writing a Featured Article (FA) for the White-faced Whistling Duck. The article already has some good multimedia, so I'd like to add a bunch of natural history info. The only problem is that I don't own or have easy access to any bird books, particularly waterfowl books. If there's someone in the project with access to these kinds of books who can make digital copies of the pages related to Dendrocygna viduata, I'd appreciate it if they could send them my way along with citation information. The more sources I can get my hands on, the better the chance I'll have of being able to write a FA. – Maky « talk » 14:33, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Might be useful to check out the 685 page matches on BHL for it - http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/name/Dendrocygna_viduata esp. the substantial material on http://archive.org/stream/naturalhistoryof01phi#page/116/mode/1up Shyamal (talk) 14:54, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
That definitely helps, however most of the sources barely discuss the bird or are very dated. I was hoping for more recent material. I think if I wrote an article with the majority of the sources dating between the 1800s and the 1960s, I would get a lot of questions about the reliability of the material. – Maky « talk » 15:29, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
I suspect that the only major print-only sources to be examined are the HBW and Madge's Wildfowl - reviews by Johnsgard and other material are online and works on phylogeny, archaeology/paleontology, parasites and behaviour are all things that have to be pieced together by review of recent journal works. I have appended some quick-and-dirty links to the article. Shyamal (talk) 16:12, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
Thank you very much for the suggested sources along with the "quick and dirty" links. I might have trouble with the Menegueti et al. 1988 paper and any others in foreign languages, so if anyone has access and later wants to append that information to the article, please do so. I'm not familiar with HBW, and I would still need scans from it and Madge's Wildfowl book. Can anyone help with those? Once I have that, I can make plans to start. – Maky « talk » 16:27, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
I have Madge, I'll scan it, but it may be after Easter until I get it done. I also have JSTOR access, so if you find anything searching that site, I can usually get full text. You will need to email me, since I can't send attachments through Wikipedia, so I need to see your RL e-address. I'll see what else I have Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:05, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
That's great! After Easter is fine since my "weekend" is coming to a close and my work week starts tomorrow. Maybe I can work on the article next Thurs/Fri. I'll let you know if I find anything on JSTOR. – Maky « talk » 18:56, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Just FYI—Since I've been known to shoot myself in the foot by writing too much about a particular species, and then find myself saying it all again in a genus article, I'm going to start with the Whistling duck article and then move on to the species article. Hopefully I can improve it to at least GA. This also opens the possibility for a Good or Featured Topic... which given the number of quality photos and the amount of material I've accumulated, might be a fun possibility. – Maky « talk » 03:01, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Does anyone happen to have full access to Ducks, Geese and Swans by Kear Janet? It looks like it might be a good source, but I'm cut off from 2 key pages on Google Books. Also, does anyone have any idea how to find the authority for the tribe Dendrocygnini? Sources mention it, but never seem to give an authority. – Maky « talk » 01:08, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure authorities for subfamily or tribe rank names are important and are merely constructed by using the typical genus in them and appending the ending -ini. Authorities for these intermediate ranks or clades are mentioned only when there discussing differences in circumscription or sense in which the group names are used. Shyamal (talk) 12:41, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
I haven't got Kear, guess why. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:08, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the replies. I think my Bird Department curator has a copy of Kear under lock, key, and missile defense. Yet I think he'll let me borrow it to take notes on the two pages I can't read on Google. I'll keep my fingers crossed. – Maky « talk » 21:21, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Birds that can swim that don't look like they should be able to swim...

e.g. here, here and here...

Anyone here know of good written references for these species being able to swim? I couldn't find anything useful when I looked, and I don't really want to cite YouTube. Cheers. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 20:12, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

I think the Grey Heron is actually walking, rather than swimming. Those legs reach a long way down. The Martial Eagle is swimming because somebody is holding its jesses under the water; it wouldn't be doing so given the choice, despite what the caption on the video says! I'll see what my various raptor books say, and will add what I find. MeegsC (talk) 22:41, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
I wasn't 100% sure about the heron. There are some photos on Google images (search 'heron swimming') too, which do appear to show Grey Herons swimming in a swanlike posture, but I haven't seen any more videos. Here's a better Bald Eagle vid, btw. This species can definitely swim, though probably only as well as it needs to so that it can get out of the water... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 23:02, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
According to one heron book online (without page numbers, unfortunately) all herons can and do regularly swim. They even go after prey that way (to varying degrees depending on species). I'll see what HBW has to say. MeegsC (talk) 23:38, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
Heh, I wonder what their legs look like paddling under the water? You know, when I was a little kid, I used to think that the Grey Heron was a flightless bird - basically because of its shape and the fact that I'd never seen one doing anything except stand in one place and stare... ;) --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 22:01, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
If you'd like a bit of OR, I've very occasionally seen Grey Herons swim. All birds are light enough to float, and it's not necessary to have webbed toes to do so (most mammals, including humans, can swim despite being denser and lacking webbed feet). The Spotted Redshank is a frequent swimmer despite lacking webbed toes and having a similar body shape to the heron, and Water Rails can also swim Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:50, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
Do herons have waterproof plumage, as a matter of interest? I was under the (possibly incorrect) impression that most non-waterproofed birds, obviously things like cormorants excepted, became waterlogged and drowned very easily. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 20:54, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
No, and most herons don't have an effective preen gland either. However, it takes time for water to penetrate the trapped air in the feather, and the powder down is slightly oily too. Cormorants can spend considerable time in water without waterlogging, and whilst herons may not be that aquatic, the odd swim won't do any harm. If plumage was wetted that easily, birds would become waterlogged and dangerously cold every time it rained Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:58, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Locked Pages

I reviewed the extinct species listing. The following two pages are locked:

That should take care of the extinct species.......Pvmoutside (talk) 19:54, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:19, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

collaboration - forgotten to update

Our last collaboration was House Sparrow and I completely overlooked the fact that it had been passed as GA last year, by which our criteria are that we replace with a new one. The current leader is tern, so that is the new collaboration. I did think of being bold and throwing in tinamou as it is broad and actively being worked on by an editor at present. These are both broad articles we should buff so I am sure either editor would appreciate feedback. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:13, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd go for tern simply on the basis that I've got good sources for that, and nothing for tinamou Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:27, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
Alright, let's get to it then. Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:33, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Howard & Moore Checklist online

The 4th edition of the Howard & Moore Checklist (Non-passerines) is online. Might be interesting for North American related bird articles

http://issuu.com/avespress/docs/final_issuu_ver_3 --Melly42 (talk) 12:47, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Source

Can someone help me with the source reference mentioned in Christidis and Boles as "McCracken and Sheldon (2002) found no difference between nominate garzetta and schistaceus using cytochrome-b sequence data". This does not appear to be listed in the references. Shyamal (talk) 04:08, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I found a reference here to: McCracken, K.G. & Sheldon, F.H. 2002. Phylogeny of the herons of the world. Abstract, North American Ornithological Conference, New Orleans, LA, USA. Maias (talk) 05:07, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
That seems to be right. Thanks a lot for finding that despite my failure to mention the context which was Egretta gularis! Shyamal (talk) 07:54, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
No response from Dr McCracken. Cannot find the sequences for gularis / schistacea on any of the gene sequence databases either although garzetta is partly available. Shyamal (talk)

Wikipedia plagiarism

There must be a fair number of instances where Wikipedia is plagiarised in bird-related publications. But here is a really sad example where bad info gets into what are generally thought to be reliable sources. Compare the poorly referenced statement added here which gets picked off and included in this with the citation altered. Wonder if journal editors even check. Shyamal (talk) 15:26, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Yep, that's baaad. Surfbirds main site isn't RS (I think it was on the Wikipedia blacklist at one stage) let alone its forum Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:06, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Cleanup may be needed

This user Special:Contributions/92.0.250.56 seems to have added Category:Birds by country to birds that may be wrong, plase help chek this if you

This won't be a problem, since you can view all articles in the category on its page, and right now there correctly are none. —innotata 18:23, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Merge Mauritius Parakeet and Réunion Parakeet?

The IUCN has long synonymised them[1], and other recent sources state there are no known differences between the two, other than location. A supposed skin of the latter is of uncertain origin, and no subfossils have been found on Réunion. Should they simply be merged? FunkMonk (talk) 01:32, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't merge them because there is still the possibilty that the Mauritius Parakeet was a subspecies of the Réunion Parakeet which would list the Mauritius Parakeet as Psittacula eques echo (as eques is the older name). Given several old travel reports (mentioned in Hume: Reappraisel of the Parrots (2007) and Hume / Walters: Extinct Birds (2012)) it might be quite possible that the Réunion Parakeet was a valid taxon --Melly42 (talk) 16:04, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
We don't normally have separate articles for subspecies, unless there is a good reason and plenty of content for both, I'd merge unless the Réunion bird is a separate species, which nobody seems to be suggesting Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:31, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
The question is which one is the subspecies. The Réunion Parakeet was described in 1783 (which would make this the nominate race), the Echo Parakeet (new name for the Mauritius Parakeet) was described in 1876 which would make it a subspecies of the Réunion Parakeet. By the way there is enough content for the Réunion Parakeet (see the account in Hume/Walters: Extinc Birds, 2012) --Melly42 (talk) 19:51, 18 April 2013 (UTC) (IOC entry http://www.worldbirdnames.org/n-parrots.html)
Given that the two subspecies were not...dang, I forget the technical term. As their ranges were wholly seperate, on entirely seperate islands, I'd suggest that having seperate articles would be appropriate in this case. - The Bushranger One ping only 02:50, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Syntopic? Sympatric? Shyamal (talk) 03:54, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Looks like this one is under question. IOC now lumps both under Echo Parakeet (Psittacula eques), the Reunion birds P. e. eques, and the Mauritius birds P. e. echo. Clements recognizes as Mauritius Parakeet Psittacula echo only.....Any additional sources?Pvmoutside (talk) 04:27, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Hume (2007, Reappraisel of the Parrots); Hume & Cheke (2008, Lost Land of the Dodo); Hume & Walters (2012, Extinct Birds) regnonized it as full species. --Melly42 (talk) 05:18, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
They don't actually, Hume does list them, but clarifies that no differences are known between the two populations, and that the validity of their separation is unclear. FunkMonk (talk) 10:34, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Here's all Hume 2007 says about validity: "From this illustration, there are few, if any, distinct plumage differences between the Réunion and Mauritius populations, which may have been conspecific. If this can be shown to be the case, either by fossils or skin specimens, the name P. eques has many years priority over P. echo." Nothing new has been learned since. Several other species are known to have inhabited both islands, so that has no bearing on validity. FunkMonk (talk) 11:44, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
I just looked up Cheke & Hume 2008, they do not consider the birds separate, but lump them both under P. eques (page 172 and 177). They are not considered different subspecies either. FunkMonk (talk) 23:31, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
Well, there is still a full species aocount for the Rèunion Ringnecked Parakeet in Hume & Walters (2012) and IOC (2012) treated both as valid subspecies --Melly42 (talk) 04:48, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
There is an entry, yes, but Hume does not state it is valid, on the contrary, he states there is nothing that indicates it is separate. FunkMonk (talk) 10:32, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
Hume (2012) stated:

There has been much confusion regarding this bird, as it has never been clear how it differed from the rare but extant Echo Parakeet... However there seems little doubt that such a bird did occur on Réunion.

Citation: Hume & Walters (2012): Extinct Birds, p 176-177. And there is at least one question I have: Why did the Réunion population became extinct so rapidly (during the 18th century) and why did the Mauritius population declined much slower? When the two populations were indeed identical (where I have still my doubts as no DNA analysis were ever made) why no one has so far come up with the idea to reintroduce the Mauritius parakeet to Réunion? --Melly42 (talk) 14:40, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
There's little question that such a bird existed on Réunion, that's right, but this doesn't mean it was a separate species. The Mauritius population almost went extinct too (12 birds left by the 1980s), but was saved by a captive breeding programme. Moving some of these birds to Réunion wouldn't be a good idea at present, as the Mauritian population is small enough as it is. The sources don't elaborate on why one population went extinct faster, but well, Réunion was occupied by the French, who seem to have been even more brutal towards local wildlife than the Dutch and Brits, or at least they wrote about it that way. And DNA work on the one possible skin could of course sort taxonomy out, but even then, there's no solid proof it was actually from Réunion. FunkMonk (talk) 15:27, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

A question: There seems to be an assumption that the Mauritius and Reunion birds are each other's closest relatives. But, given that the supposed Reunion specimen has not been subject to genetic analysis, do we know that the founding ancestors of both birds did not come separately from somewhere else? Maias (talk) 06:11, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

That would be unlikely, for geographic and morphological reasons. FunkMonk (talk) 09:37, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
Another question: There was some debate to treat the likewise extinct Seychelles Parakeet as subspecies of the Ring-necked Parakeet. Are there any analysis which support this treatment? --Melly42 (talk) 07:40, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
According to Hume 2007, James Greenway proposed this in 1967, but Hume disagrees on morphological grounds, and no DNA tests have yet been made. FunkMonk (talk) 10:30, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Martha (Passenger Pigeon) Table of Contents Help

I've been working on the Passenger Pigeon article (all but the lead, Extinction, and Possible De-Extinction have been worked on and are in rough draft form if someone wants to read over it) and have just started work on its subarticle, Martha (Passenger Pigeon). Martha was the species' endling and, after Lonesome George, is probably the most famous of the endlings. As this is a new type of article, I'd like some input as to what belongs in the article. I'm probably going to arrange it with Section 1 being "Ancestry" (needs a better name) which will link to the main Passenger Pigeon article and detail quickly the population history of the species, then Section 2 Early life detailing Whitman's work with Passenger Pigeons, from which Martha is believed to have been bred, and a paragraph on the alternate origin stories for Martha. Section 3 will be her life at the Cincinnati Zoo and death, Section 4 will be the poorly-titled "After death", detailing what happened to her corpse, and Section 5 will be Cultural references and hopefully her significance to conservation efforts. Does anyone have an alternative proposal or better names for "Ancestry" or "After death"? Thank you. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 21:23, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Looks good. What are you implying by the term "ancestry"? Breeding? Especially since the article doesn't have any developed equivalents, I think you could be setting standards, maybe think of it as a biography of sorts. Or look if there are god articles about other individual animals. FunkMonk (talk) 22:41, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Question

What's the name of this bird in this picture ? --محمد الفلسطيني (talk) 16:19, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

It is one of the wheatears, but someone else will have to get it to species. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 16:59, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
thanks --محمد الفلسطيني (talk) 17:03, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
Black-eared Wheatear, looks like the eastern race O. h. melanoleuca if that fits geographically Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:16, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
and i think it's very similar to the Desert Wheatear , thanks --محمد الفلسطيني (talk) 13:21, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Move Request: Hawaiian Crow Talk Page

The Hawaiian Crow's talk page is currently at Talk:ʻAlalā. Is this an error or a weird compromise? I can't move it. Thanks. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 22:50, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Just an oversight when moving the article a couple of years ago, I think. Fixed now. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 23:25, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 01:41, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Begging behaviour

Hello there! Could anyone have a look at this AfC submission and tell me what you think? I love Tinbergen's work, so would love to see such an addition to the encyclopaedia. Let me know if it's not covered already and what issues do you think need improving. Thank you and regards, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:56, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

The article has been moved to mainspace and is now at Begging behavior in birds. It needs a fair amount of work - copy editing, referencing and a check by someone knowledgeable on the subject. Maias (talk) 02:50, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
Cheers for that. It sure does. I've got another submission, albeit a bit more controversial. Do you know anyone on the Fishes or Marine Life Wikipreojects? Regards, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 13:37, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Red links?

Vuerqex (talk · contribs) is busily deleting any and all red links from various bird articles. Is that considered good practice? I thought red links had been shown to increase reader participation in the 'pedia — as well as quickly indicating that an article still needed to be written! My biggest gripe is that his response to my talk page when I asked him why he was doing it was "I don't like red links. I find them hideous to look at. I see no point to having links to pages that do not exist. I also find it annoying that there still remain things which do not have articles." What?! MeegsC (talk) 15:22, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I too find red links irritating, but they serve an obvious purpose. I have started many an article in order get rid of a red link - articles which would not now exist if the gaps in wikipedic coverage of knowledge had not been made evident. The quoted statements above smell of troll... Maias (talk) 15:43, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
It should all be reverted. Red links are a good motivation for people to start articles/redirects. Their presence is the best way to find out what's missing. FunkMonk (talk) 16:04, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
If he don't like red links he should go through ALL discussion pages and delete the red links too there. That is irony. On the other hand. It is not so motivating to write a genus article and make (self)redirects to all species mentioned in that article. Only to make red links blue --Melly42 (talk) 05:05, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
The only reason not to have a red link is if it's inconceivable that an article will be written. I find myself writing stubs on obscure parasites and plants to avoid red links in my FACs, that's the way it should work. Do we need to take action? Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:30, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
I guess it depends on the links being removed. Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:28, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Editing guideline: WP:REDDEAL. In short: Don't remove red links if the matter can support its own article (notable with reliable refs) 62.107.217.73 (talk) 18:19, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Resource request HBW terns

Resolved

Does anyone have access to HBW volume 3? If so, could you please email or dropbox me the family introduction for Sternidae? Thanks in advance, Jimfbleak - talk to me? 10:18, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm leaving the university today but may be able to get it before I go. Would you want just the intro or the whole article? Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 11:06, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, I've no idea how much there is for the family section, as much as possible if it's not too much to do, good luck Jimfbleak - talk to me? 11:51, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
Including the species accounts at the end of the chapter? Will do my best. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 11:57, 9 May 2013 (UTC)
No, I don't particularly need the species accounts, thanks again Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:07, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Typo

I was updating some of the Bulbuls. Can an admin remove the period in Arizelocichla......Sorry for the typo...Pvmoutside (talk) 22:20, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:50, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Ageing

File:River Tern (Sterna aurantia)- Adult & Immature W IMG 9721.jpg I would guess shows a breeding-plumage adult, a non-breeding adult and a juvenile, but I've never seen this species, so confirmation or correction would be welcome. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:42, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Would say adult and two immatures. The non-breeding adult has a darker eye-stripe and no scaly appearance on the wing coverts. Shyamal (talk) 01:41, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
Great, thanks for that Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:25, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Categorising

To my surprise, I've just discovered the existence of Category:Penguins (a flat category with about 60 penguin species and genera in it), and the parallel Category:Spheniscidae, and subcats, which is a structured tree for specific species/genus/family articles. There's about ten articles which are only in one or the other, but they mostly match.

It's not just penguins - compare Category:Thrushes and Category:Turdidae, or Category:Storks and Category:Ciconiidae. Category:Kingfishers doesn't map strictly to a grouping, but isn't linked in any way to its nominal parent at Category:Coraciiformes. There's no doubt many others.

Is this intentional? It seems a bit unexpected to me, and it certainly doesn't fit with the way we handle the overall articles. Andrew Gray (talk) 20:56, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

  • Hmm, I'd say it's helpful for readers to have categorization according to common names in addition to scientific classification: the person looking for information about an animal (perhaps trying to identify one they saw for example) isn't likely to be familiar with its taxonomy. Also, the common names of animals and their scientific classification don't always match: Take jays for example - there are jays in 10 genera and many more individual species but there's no scientific family for them. Instead, they're part of Corvidae, but that also includes crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, magpies, treepies, choughs and nutcrackers. So, if you want to categorize them as jays you have to use the common name. Please correct me if I'm wrong anyone. --KFP (contact - edits) 21:25, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Missing plates from Rothschild's "Extinct Birds"

This question probably won't get answered, as it pertains to very obscure stuff, but here's a go anyway. Some users uploaded all images from Walter Rothschild's 1907 book to Commons in high res some years back, taken from Archive.org.[2] Some years ago, I uploaded an image[3] of mohoidae members from this page.[4] I just now noticed that the image was apparently published in Extinct Birds as "plate 4A", but there is no 4A in the Archive.org version, or any other "secondary" plates like that. So anyone know if this is from a later edition, a supplement, and if there are more such images we are missing? FunkMonk (talk) 03:36, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

The list of plates on the book indicates 4A so it must be a missing plate in the book. Best bet is to ask the folks at the Biodiversity Heritage Library - they are quite responsive on their Facebook page, blog and email and can probably locate another library to scan the missing page. Shyamal (talk) 09:18, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
Ah, you're right, and interestingly, I can see the "backside" of the missing page, with outlines of those birds:[5] Which means it was there, just not scanned. Yeah, I'll ask them then... FunkMonk (talk) 20:28, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

More empty lists

User:Koolboy2001 is continuing to create lists of birds (and mammals) for various localities, but does not seem to be interested in filling them with any useful content. Examples are List of birds of Louisiana, List of mammals of Georgia (U.S. state) and List of birds of Chatham County, Georgia. Maias (talk) 03:43, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I've left him a message Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:17, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps userify his lists, until such time that the desire to finish them returns? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 18:22, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
Personally I'd delete, given that they have no real content, but we had better allow a day or two in case he responds Jimfbleak - talk to me? 19:29, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Diet of frogs and rodents man again?

Is he 88.104.227.83 (talk · contribs), do you think? Just flagging it up... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 18:24, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't be surprised, but he is getting better at it. I've reverted changes to FAs, but otherwise it's hard to spot whether most of the edits actually change the meaning Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:07, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

name birds

What's the name of this bird in this pictures [6] and [7] --محمد الفلسطيني (talk) 16:35, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Not knowing where they are or what time of year makes it harder, but I'd say the first is Northern Wheatear and the second is Stone Curlew Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:56, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
Mohammed, I notice that both are marked "all rights reserved". Are they yours, and if so, are you going to release them to Wikipedia Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:59, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

thanks mr Jim , Of course, I would choose the best images to the Commons, but I like to first know the name of the bird, love birds so much , I apologize because the language broken --محمد الفلسطيني (talk) 18:31, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

If you write where the pictures were taken,it will be easier for people to identify the birds. FunkMonk (talk) 18:32, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Noddy ID

Which noddy is this? File:Starr 080605-6653 Casuarina equisetifolia.jpg. It's on Midway Atoll, Hawaii Jimfbleak - talk to me? 11:05, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I would say, a Brown Noddy (Anous stolidus) --Melly42 (talk) 18:09, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Jimfbleak - talk to me? 18:43, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

The names of birds

[8][9] [10] [11] note , location and thanks --محمد الفلسطيني (talk) 16:13, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd say the first is Stone Curlew, next two Black-eared Wheatear and the last is, I think Long-legged Buzzard Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:35, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks --محمد الفلسطيني (talk) 08:23, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
I think it's Little, 12 is Woodchat Shrike Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:40, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
great , thanks , File:Little Owl.JPG --محمد الفلسطيني (talk) 18:34, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Fairy Tern image

A reader sent in the following image: File:Fairy Tern with chick.jpg It might make a fine addition to Fairy Tern, but I would like someone with more expertise to confirm the identification, and consider appropriate cropping.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 19:03, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Looks like White Tern (Gygis alba)to me, a species which is often called Fairy Tern, and so gets confused with Sterna nereis. No idea what subspecies it might be. Maias (talk) 01:50, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes, definitely White Tern which lays its egg directly onto a tree branch (no nest!). Need a location for ssp id Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:30, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

...speaking of which

On behalf of the project, I've been working up Tern with a view to FAC. It's a family level article with 40+ species, so there is something of a balancing act between comprehensiveness and too much detail. I'd be grateful for any comments or corrections (but please no puns!) Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:36, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Locked pages

I think Cnemiornis should be moved to New Zealand Geese (as the common name is established). Further the sections about both the North Island Goose and the South Island Goose need a major update --Melly42 (talk) 06:48, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Looks uncontroversial, MOS suggest use of English names, so moved to New Zealand geese — not "Geese", MOS caps. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:55, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

FAC news

Red Rail is at FAC, as is our current collaboration, Tern, which I've nominated on behalf of the project. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 14:41, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Choiseul Pigeon is there as well. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 18:52, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Eyes needed

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/June 16, 2013 will be Aylesbury duck. When it's on the main page this will have problems with good-faith errors, as Commons and Flickr both have a number of photographs of other white poultry breeds misidentified as Aylesbury ducks, and a lot of people will undoubtedly notice that the article lacks a photo and add one of these photos in good faith. Could I ask people to keep an eye on it on the day and revert-and-politely-explain where necessary? – iridescent 19:43, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I assume that none of the real birds here are Aylesbury ducks, to what should they be renamed? Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:18, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
File:Aylesbury duck in Whitby Abbey 19062008.jpg looks like an albinistic mallard, or possibly a feral Pekin or Call-duck cross; the central duck in File:Aylesbury Ducks.jpg is definitely a Pekin duck, while the three in the background are possibly Aylesbury crosses (they have the distinctive pink bills, but not the bulging keel, and are much smaller than adult Aylesburys which are the size of a goose or small swan); File:Aylesbury ducks.jpg look to me like Pekins of some kind but I couldn't say for sure; File:Joseph Crawhall - The White Drake.jpg is so stylized it could be almost anything and without knowing where and when it was painted I wouldn't like to guess; File:NIEdot324.jpg does include an Aylesbury but it's crudely drawn and not to scale (all the birds are drawn the same size) so isn't particularly useful; File:Mary Simmons of Hartwell's prize-winning Aylesbury ducks.jpg does show true Aylesburys and is used in the article.
Because Aylesbury eggs don't hatch without artificial incubation, there are no feral specimens so any photo taken outside a commercial breeder or agricultural show is likely to be suspect; there is only one remaining commercial breeder (this one), who never replied to my request for a free-use photo when I requested one. Before WWI they were quite a popular show breed in Britain and the US, so it's possible that a main page appearance will prompt someone to upload an out-of-copyright photo. – iridescent 16:18, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
Interesting. If I get time I might ring them....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 07:38, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Archer's Lark and Liben Lark

Seems that both taxa are conspecific with Heteromirafra archeri having priority Unfortunately I have no access to the complete article:

Claire N. Spottiswoode et al.

Rediscovery of a long-lost lark reveals the conspecificity of endangered Heteromirafra populations in the Horn of Africa

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10336-013-0948-1

The other question is whether the Liben Lark is just a population of the Archer's Lark or whether it is a distinct subspecies --Melly42 (talk) 10:29, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Help needed at WP:CFD

Please see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 June 10#Category:Waxwings. Thanks, jonkerz ♠talk 20:30, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Collab is now Tinamou

'nuff said....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:23, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Mexico is not part of Central America

Just noticed this error in the tinamou article. Please make yourself aware of the difference between Middle America and Central America, if you're not already. Natureguy1980 (talk) 04:27, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Parenthesis for binomial

Not a big deal by any means, but many binomial names and their authorities are parenthesized, but some are not, even in featured articles....In an effort to keep consistent style, any preference, and can someone write a bot instead of having it be a tedious manual task???......Also, some scientific names in the article body are in bold type, while most are not. Similarly, any preferences and can a bot be written to keep consistent.....Pvmoutside (talk) 14:00, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

The use of parenthesis around authority is not random. It depends on what name a species was described under originally, as governed by the ICZN Code article 51.3. If in doubt and you don't have access to major taxonomic works, it's easy to check the IOC list. They usually get it right but beware that in some cases their taxonomy differs from that used on wikipedia. 62.107.212.28 (talk) 16:09, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
Some time ago it was agreed that when a common name is followed by the scientific name in brackets the scientific name will NOT be in bold but the common name would be in bold. If there is no common name than the scientific name is bolded, e.g., lion (Panthera leo). In botanic articles it is common to bold both the scientific and common names.
Another convention for scientific names uses square brackets around dates when the date is an estimate, e.g., Papilio gambrisius Cramer, [1777]. Still another convention, not always followed, is to put the authority in a smaller font (using for example <small></small> tags, e.g., Papilio gambrisius Cramer, [1777]. Dger (talk) 18:42, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
A bot sounds like a great idea. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:53, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
I think we are talking taxoboxes, not the lead, when it comes to the parenthesis thing. As mentioned, there is a reason for the parenthesis. It should not be standardised, because the purpose is to show when a species has been moved to a different genus (new combination) than when originally described. If you look at lion, the authority for Panthera leo is in parenthesis. But authority for the original combination, Felis leo, has no parenthesis. This has to be done manually, not by bots, since it differs from article to article. FunkMonk (talk) 21:53, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
That's what I thought when I first read this thread but re-read it as prose instead - Pvmoutside can you clarify? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:02, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
From the edit history, it is clear that User:Pvmoutside is talking about the brackets around authority in the taxobox. (This is documented in Template:Taxobox#Authorities) I have fixed some of the edits s/he has made, but quite a few of the edits need to be fixed with verification. Shyamal (talk) 05:35, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification Shyamal. Yes, the question regarding the parentheses was relating to the taxobox. The bold type refers to the scientific name in the first few lines of the main text, usually right after the common name. Most are italicized, but not bold.....A bot to standardize those remaining??? I'll also be happy to add/remove parentheses. Any idea where I can find the original scientific name source?Pvmoutside (talk) 04:59, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
As pointed above the IOC list is good and quick unless you find a difference in the genus placement, in which case you can look up Peters' Check-list of birds of the world for the protonym. Shyamal (talk) 13:20, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Snowman does some semi-automatated editing, but I don't think anyone on this project can write a bot, you would need to find a techy elsewhere Jimfbleak - talk to me? 14:36, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
All this can be done with semi-automatic editing or perhaps with a bot. I have run my scripts semi-automatically, partly because it avoids the time-consuming process of getting a script approved to run completely automatically (as a bot). I have not thought about a possible script in detail for the tasks mentioned above, but the script would need to have access to a list (ie webpage) that contains the correct authority data. I did something similar to this before following a request, and with assistance from erudite WP bird members, I checked and did all the genus bird authorities with a script and that included putting in the authorities with relevant wikilinks to author pages correctly in round brackets or not with the date. I could have checked and done all the species authorities as well, but I was not requested to do that back then. Of course, it is a bigger task checking the species and there are likely to be numerous inconsistencies, so again I would appreciate erudite ornithology assistance. Also, I have changed substantial numbers of binomial names in introductions to the agreed format; however, I believe that it is frowned upon doing thousands of small edits with semi-automatic software, so I have only corrected these when there are also other edits in an article. I think that editors doing hundreds of edits with semi-automatic software can attract criticism, but if there is a WP Project agreement to do these sort of small edits, then this might help me justify a series of small edits. It is summer here in the UK and I am spending quite a lot of time out of doors. It is likely that I will do more editing in the winter. Meanwhile, I would be interested to see the exact specifications of what is requested. There are other semi-automated tasks that I am interested in which might take priority. Snowman (talk) 20:08, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Not quite, there were other issues in those cases of semiautomatic editing. I am sure that if there is a consensus it will run much more smoothly. What other tasks did you have in mind? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:38, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
What issues do you mean? I have probably done 100s of semi-automated edits correcting the format of the common name and binomial name in the introduction with other edits without problems, and I am not aware of any issues. I am interesting in; Checking talk pages with "image needed" and adding "image needed" where needed: Writing a spreadsheet of Wiki nomenclature (with information from taxoboxes): Managing the structure of the bird category tree (where do Donald Duck pages go): Updating IUCN data: Matching Wiki binomial names with other authorities (there are many variations in the Latin): Various tasks on Commons: Extending some of the scripts to work on mammal pages: Various tasks on regional bird lists. Snowman (talk) 20:57, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
I recall that I declined fixing the format of the common name and binomial name in the introduction using a dedicated script when it was discussed here before, because I did not want to do lots of small edits semi-automatically and it was not one of my priorities. Is this the issue that User Casliber was hinting at? Nevertheless, I wrote a regex for it and I have done myriads as opportunistic (or incidental) edits when bird articles needed other edits as well. I might write a script (several fairly simple lines of code) to catch most of the various incorrect formatting forms (including common typos) and run it as part of a more complex script that does other tasks as well. Snowman (talk) 21:02, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Pacific Swift

Does anyone have an up-to-date reference for NAm occurrences, I know there were 5 to 1995, but that's a bit ancient now. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 14:58, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Aratinga split

Can someone fix Aratinga or at least genera te new genera pages. It has been split because it was polyphyletic. This are the new genera:

  1. Aratinga (gender feminine; type species = solstitialis)
    • Aratinga weddellii (Deville, 1851)
    • Aratinga nenday (Vieillot, 1823)
    • Aratinga solstitialis (Linnaeus, 1758)
    • Aratinga maculata (Statius Muller, 1776)
    • Aratinga jandaya (Gmelin, 1788)
    • Aratinga auricapillus (Kuhl, 1820)
  2. Eupsittula (gender feminine; type species = canicularis)
    • Eupsittula nana (Vigors, 1830)
    • Eupsittula canicularis (Linnaeus, 1758)
    • Eupsittula aurea (Gmelin, 1788)
    • Eupsittula pertinax (Linnaeus, 1758)
    • Eupsittula cactorum (Kuhl, 1820)
  3. Thectocercus (gender masculine, thus requiring changes to the endings of adjectival species names; type species = acuticaudatus)
    • Thectocercus acuticaudatus (Vieillot, 1818)
  4. Psittacara (gender masculine, thus requiring changes to the endings of adjectival species names; type species = leucophthalmus)
    • Psittacara holochlorus (Sclater, 1859)
    • Psittacara strenuus (Ridgway, 1915)
    • Psittacara wagleri (G.R. Gray, 1845)
    • Psittacara mitratus (von Tschudi, 1844)
    • Psittacara erythrogenys Lesson, 1844
    • Psittacara finschi (Salvin, 1871)
    • Psittacara leucophthalmus (Statius Muller, 1776)
    • Psittacara euops (Wagler, 1832)
    • Psittacara chloropterus Souancé, 1856

69.244.220.253 (talk) 03:19, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

More importantly, what is the source? FunkMonk (talk) 04:17, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
And have the changes been accepted by IOC, our default for bird nomenclature? Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:18, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
This looks like an interesting topic, but I am not up-to-date with the taxonomy. It sounds plausible. Is it controversial? The IP appears to know about editing on the Wiki, so I suspect that the apparent IP might be a regular editor who forgot to sign in. Snowman (talk) 10:04, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Here is the most current paper about phylogeny of Aratinga: Zootaxa 3641 (3): 296–300 (24 Apr. 2013)

DNA-sequence data require revision of the parrot genus Aratinga (Aves: Psittacidae) J.V. REMSEN, JR., ERIN E. SCHIRTZINGER, ANNA FERRARONI, LUÍS FÁBIO SILVEIRA & TIMOTHY F. WRIGHT --Melly42 (talk) 11:28, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

IOC will follow, this is a really essential change in nomenclature. SACC will follow soon. Once they have, IOC will follow as well. It is not controversial, but the logical extension of the revisions in the family as a whole. 69.244.220.253 (talk) 03:01, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

  • I am puzzled that the newly proposed Aratinga genus contains the green with yellow (or orange) parakeets and the and green with grey (or black) parakeets, especially the Nanday Parakeet. However, going on the appearance of these parrots, the other new genera look logical. I think that it is too early for the Wiki to adopt these new changes hook, line and sinker. Snowman (talk) 12:06, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
  • It seems all of these are just old junior synonyms that are now resurrected, rather than new genera, so funny that none of them were redirects already. FunkMonk (talk) 19:50, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

The Nanday is inbetween the solitarius group and wedelli, and they choose to keep that as a single genus. And yes, if there is an older junior synonym, that name is the first available name and you do not create a new one (which would be a junior synonym).69.244.220.253 (talk) 01:25, 28 June 2013 (UTC) Could someone move Nandayus vorohuensis to Aratinga vorohuensis? 69.244.220.253 (talk) 01:51, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

  • What is the DNA separation between the nenday and weddii from the others in the new Aratinga genus? I think that nenday and weddii tend to look like a separate genus to the green and yellow (or orange) Aratinga. How reliable is the information from the IP? Where is the evidence to justify moving a fossil parakeet article? If the change has wide acceptance, then I presume that the species authority needs to be changed as well and the name change would need to be supported by an in-line reference. Is pertinax more than one genus now? Generally speaking it is helpful for IPs to sign in. Snowman (talk) 08:43, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
"nenday was found to be included in the solstitialis group" [Ribas, C.C., & Miyaki, C.Y. (2004) Molecular systematics in Aratinga parakeets: species limits and historical biogeography in the solstitialis group, and the systematic position of Nandayus nenday. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 30, 663-675.] Burmeister (talk) 11:50, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
  • The quote does not say that the "solstitialis group" is one genus. 20:14, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Rensen et al write: "Ribas & Miyaki’s (2004) results called into question the monophyly of Peters’ broadly defined Aratinga when they found that A. leucophthalma was only distantly related to the other Aratinga sampled and that Nandayus nenday was embedded within the sampled Aratinga species. Silveira et al. (2005) provided additional details delimiting at least three groups within broadly defined Aratinga (see also Whitney 1996) and proposed that it was not a monophyletic genus. These three groups also show consistent difference in vocalizations among the groups and similarities among species within each group (B. M. Whitney, pers. comm.). Subsequent studies with much broader taxon sampling (Kirchman et al. 2012, Schirtzinger et al. 2012) confirmed that the genus consisted of three separate lineages, corresponding in part to the 3-genus classification of Ridgway (1916) and Pinto (1938). Further, Ribas & Miyaki (2004) and Tavares et al. (2006) found that the monotypic genus Nandayus was embedded in one of the Aratinga lineages. Subsequently, Urantowka et al. (2012) also found that Aratinga species were distributed in the three clades found by previous authors, but also found that A. acuticaudata was even more distantly related to the other Aratinga and was actually the sister species to Diopsittaca nobilis." 69.244.220.253 (talk) 01:37, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Can someone create a redirect from Aratinga nenday to Nanday Parakeet. 69.244.220.253 (talk) 01:42, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Can someone create the following pages for the new genera: Psittacara and Eupsittula 128.186.173.33 (talk) 01:14, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I went ahead and created stubs at Psittacara and Eupsittula. Probably crappy, but there's something there now. I also created redirects for the new names. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 12:35, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
I added taxoboxes.69.244.220.253 (talk) 16:19, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Orthotomus chaktomuk

A new species of tailorbird has been discovered in Cambodia - Orthotomus Chaktomuk. Worth an article and a nomination at WP:ITN/C? Mjroots (talk) 07:46, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

The common name is Cambodian Tailorbird and here is the scientific description: Forktail / OBC --Melly42 (talk) 11:23, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
For WP:ITN/C you have to expand the article. --Melly42 (talk) 13:01, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
The file Cambodian Tailorbird.jpg is licensed with a CC BY-SA 3.0. But it seems to me that a commercial use is not permitted (EXIF say : NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS). Can this picture be used on WP:en? on Commons? Totodu74 (talk) 10:15, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
The uploader seems to have added a licence that's incompatible with the exif restrictions. In the absence of any information to suggest that he is the owner of the copyright it can't be used anywhere on Wikipedia or Commons (Fair use won't work because it's possible to take an equivalent picture if you go to Cambodia) Jimfbleak - talk to me? 10:31, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
I've deleted the image, I think it's up to the uploader to prove that he has the right to change the licence. The fact that this image is all over the internet doesn't make it compliant with Wikipedia Jimfbleak - talk to me? 10:36, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
Okay Jim, thanks for your confirmation!
By the way, wikiproject birds members, feel free to improve my poor try. I know some contributors can make super svg drawings of poor-illustrated birds ;) Totodu74 (talk) 21:35, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Green Jay

The Green Jay species is split on Commons, but not on the en Wiki. Does anyone know which taxonomy is the most widely accepted? Snowman (talk) 21:22, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

If the split is accepted by SACC, H&M, and IOC it is widely accepted --Melly42 (talk) 08:07, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
You may also want to look at Clements for worldwide classification, and the NACC for North America....Pvmoutside (talk) 12:54, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
Clements (which blindly follows NACC) and NACC do not recognize the split. Natureguy1980 (talk) 02:33, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Category:Recipients_of_the_Dickin_Medal stubs

The Category:Recipients of the Dickin Medal is only about half complete; with many heroic birds still lacking articles about them. This should be rectified. Every bird so honored to receive a Dickin Medal should get its own article on Wikipedia. Chrisrus (talk) 05:19, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

I would tend to agree, if there is enough information about each individual bird. Can you write the missing articles? Snowman (talk) 21:45, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
No, I couldn't possibly do all of that myself. I can do some, though. That's why I started this thread here. To reply about the available materials, I can't imagine there wouldn't be somewhere. It is, after all, the Dickin Medal. They wouldn't award that without proper documentation being available and issuing the proper statements. Then there will be concurrent press reports and books about the world's most important individual birds. Each one could be made into a stub to start out with very quickly. Chrisrus (talk) 00:34, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
Really? What would go into an article about a carrier pigeon? They would never be more than stubs. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 07:42, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
There's nothing wrong with being only a stub. Even if you can only write a stub about something, notability is notability, forever. - The Bushranger One ping only 07:54, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
Chuunen, to answer your question, please have a look at the article Cher Ami, Commando (pigeon), or any of the others. Chrisrus (talk) 17:08, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes. At the other project under whose prevue the article is, (the military history project), they suggested beginning by redlinking the name of each receptient. I have done this, but please check my work and help me defend it against skeptics that a bird known only by a code name could possibly be as significant as Commando (pigeon). Chrisrus (talk) 02:59, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Here is the list of newly created stubs, which, at this writing, as yet have with no more info than the fact that each was awarded a Dickin Medal. The idea is, with this fact alone, they should withstand any deletion attempts.
  1. All Alone (pigeon)  Done for now?
  2. Billy (pigeon)
  3. Cologne (pigeon)
  4. DD.43.Q.879
  5. DD.43.T.139
  6. Duke of Normandy (pigeon)
  7. Flying Dutchman (pigeon)
  8. Kenley Lass
  9. Maquis (pigeon)
  10. Mercury (pigeon)
  11. Navy Blue (pigeon)
  12. NPS.42.NS.2780
  13. NPS.42.NS.7524
  14. NURP.38.BPC.6
  15. NURP.43.CC.1418
  16. Princess (pigeon)
  17. Ruhr Express (pigeon)
  18. Scotch Lass
  19. Tommy (pigeon)
  20. In addition, although I’ve done some work on Beach Comber, there is more to do there.
  21. Finally, at this writing, there still is no article about Broad Arrow (pigeon).

Chrisrus (talk) 19:23, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

The first of these, alphabetically, All Alone, may have achieved at least start as opposed to stub status.

Patrols are needed to add:

  • {{War pigeons}}tags.
  • Infobox animal
  • pictures,
  • categories,
  • corresponding national project tags and other appropriate project tags,
  • transfer references from articles such as All Alone and Dickin Medal to the stubs,
  • find and add more references,
  • transferring the information from the references into the body texts of the articles
  • talk page "welcome: info" messeges

War Hawks?

Is this true? http://strangevehicles.greyfalcon.us/Nazi%20Pigeon.htm

This website says that "To counter the menace, MI5 tamed and trained its own crack force of peregrine falcons, with the aim of felling incoming pigeons." and "The new Army Pigeon Service Special Section birds of prey were used to set up an airborne net over the Scilly Isles early in 1942 following sightings of pigeons disappearing towards France. The MI5 report notes Britain's new anti-pigeon force would patrol for two hours at a time over the islands off the Cornish coast. It says: "This was a great success. The falcon flying high above the Scillies could watch not only a part of one island, but the whole group, and any pigeon flying over them would be attacked."

Is this true? If so, why doesn't Wikipedia seem to know anything about it? Chrisrus (talk) 20:52, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Dunno, but falcons are not hawks. ;-) Natureguy1980 (talk) 21:33, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
This page is a [part?] transcription of HS 8/854, which seems like a fairly suitable source, and notes that it did indeed happen to some extent; while the falcons could happily intercept any pigeons in the area, "they never brought down an enemy bird (probably because there never were any)". The PRO also had something about it in a 2001 exhibition. Here (.doc) is a similar US program. Andrew Gray (talk) 21:37, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
Could they have an article of their own, or maybe a section on Military animal, or both? Chrisrus (talk) 22:50, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
It seems like the sort of thing that could be dealt with in a couple of sentences in the military animal and falconry (?) articles. Andrew Gray (talk) 23:06, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Move Bill Smythies to Bertram Smythies

I think Bill Smythies should be moved to Bertram Smythies as Bertram was much more often stated on publications and Bill was merely used by his colleages, family, and friends --Melly42 (talk) 16:43, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree. Maias (talk) 01:37, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
Agree, it looks like it was created as Bertram E. Smythies Shyamal (talk) 03:16, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
Green tickY moved. Shyamal (talk) 03:17, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Proposed new table / infobox for core measurements

Hi there, I have noticed that bird measurements are becoming quite messy when placed in paragraphs - take Crowned Eagle as a moderate example. I hereby suggest that we create, and implement, a table for bird measurements, that would look something like the following and eventually become a template:

Harpy Eagle
Male Female Refs
Length 86.5 to 107 cm (2 ft 10 in to 3 ft 6 in) [1]
Weight 4 to 4.8 kg (8.8 to 10.6 lb) 6 to 9 kg (13 to 20 lb) [2][3]
Wingspan 176 to 224 cm (5 ft 9 in to 7 ft 4 in) [2][1]
Wing chord 54–63 cm (1 ft 9 in – 2 ft 1 in) [2][4][5]
Tail Length 37–42 cm (1 ft 3 in – 1 ft 5 in) [2]
Tarsus 11.4–13 cm (4.5–5.1 in) [2]
Culmen 4.2 to 6.5 cm (1.7 to 2.6 in) [2]

This is a very crass example - ultimately I would like it to become a template. Also, I would like a toggle between imperial/metric button, such to do away with the murkiness imparted by having these alongside eachother.

The main reason I am pushing for this template is because I think some of the paragraphs on the bird pages are becoming clogged with measurements that look unsightly and are hard to read and recall.

Any takers? I am willing to develop and refine the template on my own or with help. I respect that not all bird pages might need the template, but some might.

sabine antelope 23:43, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Looks great! Chrisrus (talk) 07:13, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm not convinced. It looks good, but I'm wary of substituting tables for prose
  • There is a danger that this would become rolled into the taxobox,leading to the sort of infobox creep widely criticised elsewhere. Taxoboxes shouldn't accumulate unnecessary detail
What about a collapsible feature? sabine antelope 22:40, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
  • This is a self-created problem. Culmen, tarsus and wing chord are hardly of interest to the general reader, leave out these unnecessary details, and you don't need the table
  • The amount of text could be halved at a stroke if we did what the physicists and astronomers do, and give only metric units
Sorry if this seems negative, but I'm not a great fan of tables unless they are clearly necessary (eg lists of 20 subspecies) Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:45, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
I agree this doesn't need to be in table format. The measurements are more useful presented in prose, along with non-numerical data, for example that a bird has particularly long legs relative to its body. Maybe if it's important (and possible) to compare sexes and subspecies individualised tables could be used, but this doesn't need to be standard. I don't agree that culmen and tarsus are unneeded, though: they are the normal way of comparing bill and leg length. —innotata 15:38, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
  • I think that info belongs to the description section. I don't see a reason why it would be necessary in the infobox, it would just be duplicate information. FunkMonk (talk) 11:46, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
It might be useful if someone can include a "collapse" feature in Template:Infobox bird Shyamal (talk) 12:58, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
I really like this idea; read below. sabine antelope 22:40, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
I am wary of this as for many species these are not immediately accessible, hence we'd have a lot of boxes with blank fields. Fungi have mycomorphboxes which really extend data down the right-hand side of the article - something I am not particularly keen on. My own preference is to leave as prose in the Description section, where it can be adjusted or appended with explanatory information. Sorry, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:01, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
OP here again. I understand the concerns. May I say the following:
  • If the template were not at least partially collapsible, that would be a disappointment. The data doesn't exist for all birds. That's why I suggested we use a template, not a table, as a template can be customised to be only as large as the data requires. If data is missing, the field omits itself from the table. Of course, for many birds this will lead to just three measurements (length, weight and wingspan), but that's OK in itself.
  • I still think a toggle between metric/imperial is in order. A template could execute this with ease. Parentheses containing numbers don't read well, whether in tables or in prose.
  • I agree, duplication of information is a major pitfall and would single-handedly make the proposed template redundant. That is an excellent point. The idea behind the template is to extract and remove from paragraphs large amounts of quantifiable information which doesn't even gain from qualitative description, in furtherance to the detrimental effect on readability (See: Philippine Eagle and Steller's Sea Eagle as examples). The reader is lead through a garden path of the qualitative lumped in with the quantitative. The only real solution, then, if a template is going to be used and we wish to avoid duplication, is to remove the data from the passage once transcribed.
  • I also happen to think a "collapse" feature in Infobox: bird would be a great idea. Such a solution would obviate the need for a new template altogether. It would also appease those who wish to leave the paragraphs relatively unchanged. Think we can wing this? ;)
  • It seems quite evident this proposed template doesn't have much support, mostly because of cited redundancy, annoyance, etc. I appreciate it might not be applicable for all birds, but for raptors and other large birds, it might.
  • I disagree that we should omit culmen, tarsus and wing chord altogether. The information exists and is likely to become apparent for more and more birds. I don't think there's consensus we should disregard these measures for the sake of succinctness. I recognise Wikipedia shouldn't get clogged with technical minutiae, and I'll admit I'm not that wild about aforementioned measures myself, but I think the data does have a place on Wikipedia (even if not in the prose).

I really don't want to do anything too radical. I'd just like the pages to read better, i.e. with less numerical litter making it hard to extract and recall key information. Exactly how this will be achieved, I'm not sure. I'm happy to kill the idea of a new table for all birds (which was never really the idea), but I remain hopeful we can form some solution i.e. in the way of a collapsible part of the infobox, or perhaps a template dedicated to raptors initially. sabine antelope 22:40, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

My main problem with this is that it seems redundant in relation to the description section, where all this info should also be placed. What is the point? FunkMonk (talk) 23:21, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
My own mostly impractical and futuristic point of view in support of templates is that, when, and if Wikipedia ever becomes more semantically accessible, these templates would allow for single point modifications that would allow a semantic search engine to, say, locate all bird species(articles) with tarsus between 10 and 15cm and a bill length more than 20cm. But then I am aware of the inacurracies in the measurement, problems with their definitions, careless documentation in old texts, mixing of values measured with multiple techniques in secondary literature, confusion caused by long tail streamers/ceres/festoons, left/right asymmetry and so on. Shyamal (talk) 02:23, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
How many articles will actually have this data? Some articles have length (however that is defined), some wingspan, some weight but many have no measurements at all. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 16:31, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
I routinely extract this from literature when sprucing up species entries on my todo list - see Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Infobox_bird Shyamal (talk) 04:07, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
Why not put this at the top of the description section? —innotata 15:38, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Old books on birds

There is a lovely collection of old works (I mean really old!) at the ETH Zurich digital collection http://www.e-rara.ch/oiseaux/nav/classification/43 - and includes very rare sixteenth century works by Pierre Belon, Ulysse Aldrovandi, Conrad Gesner etc. - I have extracted a few classic images - File:Bird_Belon.jpg File:Belon_1555_inside.jpg File:Man_Belon.jpg Shyamal (talk) 15:23, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Hello,
Please note that Bird of prey, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article was scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
Delivered by Theo's Little Bot at 02:52, 24 July 2013 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team

Capitalisation of bird names again

In case no one noticed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Emperor_Penguin#Requested_move FunkMonk (talk) 03:41, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

  • We really need to be able to link directly to that guideline (why does the main page not have Table of contents?) and have a more in depth explanation, otherwise it is hard to show every time it is brought up. Had the same problem here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Dodo#Capitalization It may seem as common sense for bird enthusiasts, but not to everyone else, therefore we should have a more "outsider-friendly" section to deal with the issue. That's better than having these lengthy discussions every other month on random talk pages. FunkMonk (talk) 03:43, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
Maybe the link should be included on the WikiProject birds tag template Template:WikiProject_Birds. Shyamal (talk) 04:23, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
Could be a good additional step. It certainly needs to be more visible. FunkMonk (talk) 04:40, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure how to remove it, nothing happens when I remove the text... FunkMonk (talk) 06:19, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
Not sure where you're linking but what about using template:shortcut? Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 08:10, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
The following title: "Bird names and article titles" But in any cas,e could be nice with a table of contents. FunkMonk (talk) 10:19, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Whatever prevents the toc from showing up needs to be removed in a hurry, anyone know how to do it? This will have to go to a much higher place to be determined, this is not the place for it. And also, if nothing is done, that article will be moved to lower-case very soon. FunkMonk (talk) 05:57, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
Not clear about how the TOC helps. If what is needed is a direct link to the section, it seems that would be possible with Template:Anchor. Have added one to the relevant section so that you can now link to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Birds#Naming - I have gone ahead and added an entry to the navigation box on the right as well. Shyamal (talk) 12:04, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
It helps in the sense than anyone will be able to directivity link to policy sections from the main page. It is nice you provide a direct link here now, but this thread will be archived, and most people won't see it. FunkMonk (talk) 03:46, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Feedback on Crested Lark

I'd appreciate any feedback other editors may be able to give me on the article Crested Lark. It's the first bird article I've put a lot of work into and I'd just like to know whether or not I'm on the right lines. I know the article is far from finished but I've exhausted the material in the books I have, and I've been unable to find many reliable sources online. I will be expanding the Taxonomy and systematics section, though. The main points I wanted to ask about were:

  • Lead section - could it be improved? I don't think it adequately summarises the article, but I also wasn't sure of what exactly to include.
  • The subspecies section - is such a long list useful to the article? Would a collapsible list, possibly in the taxobox, be more appropriate?
  • References - are the books I've used appropriate sources, given their age? Is there any material I haven't referenced that could be contested?
  • Layout - would it be better having several smaller sections (as it is now) or combining some of the similar sections. I used the list from the project's main page as a guide to the sections, but most contain only three to four sentences.

Any other feedback in addition to this would also be much appreciated. I plan on working on a number of articles and getting some feedback now will keep me from making the same mistakes next time.

This is the last edit before I started making changes, for reference: 558017157 Thank you in advance --teb00007 Talk • Contributions 23:08, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

  • Comments
  • It depends what you are aiming for. I don't think as it stands that it would meet GA standards. Have a look at the GAs and FAs in the Showcase section of the project page if you are aiming for either of these assessments eventually, if not then the comments below are less relevant. As a general article it's OK apart from the lead.
  • The lead is a bit short, and you have material in it which isn't summarising what is in the text. The dimensions only appear in the lead, not in description where they should be. Distinguishing it from other species also only occurs in the lead.
  • In terms of headings, what you have is fine. I normally put just "Feeding", and I often have a "Predators and parasites" section, but the latter certainly isn't essential, and the former is your call.
  • Subspecies list is probably OK as is, but you could probably get away with just saying there are 37 ssp and only mentioning those of particular interest. Or you could put the full list in a footnote (I'm not so sure that the taxobox would be good, it would make it very long.
  • For GA, you would probably need to expand the sections a bit and give more detail. The crest alone isn't sufficient distinction (Thekla Lark at least also has a crest).
  • Oiseaux.net may not be acceptable as an RS source at GA, but those facts are easily supported elsewhere. OK anyway if not going for GA
  • Use Google Books and Google Scholar to see if you can find addition material (journals often only give the abstract, but that may be enough). If you search "crested lark taxonomy" on scholar, there is a useful free-to-download full text pdf as top return
  • Don't be afraid to ask here for help with sources. I've got the concise Birds of the Western Palaearctic and JSTOR access, the British Birds archive is on-line (and I have all of them anyway). Others here have wider journal access than me. I've just noticed you're a student, so you probably have such access.

I would be inclined to try to bring at least one article to at GA. Then you know what you should be aiming for, doesn't mean that every article has to be of that standard. I hope this helps Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:44, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Looking at your "planned articles" list, I have some decent sources for some of these, such as Turner's Swallows & Martins and Birds Britannia for the "in culture" stuff for British birds. If you do Sand Martin, may be worth looking at the other two British hirundine articles, since they are both FAs and may give some ideas. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:44, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
  • There is no need for the introduction to have in-line references, because the introduction is a summary of the rest of the article, where the information is referenced. Also, without references the introduction is easier to write. Everything in the introduction should be found in the rest of the article (referenced in the article, but not the introduction). Snowman (talk) 10:37, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments. I wasn't going for GA or FA status, although I would like to try for GA with some of the other articles I plan on contributing to (where I have more information available). My University has an aquaculture department and the library has an abundance of books on aquatic birds but there's not a lot else available on birds so if you can help me with references that would be great. I have ordered four more recently published bird books but they are coming from the United States so it'll be a few weeks before I receive them. I'll have a look through Google books for more sources - I did use it for one reference but didn't include a link because the WP policy I read said to instead include the ISBN, which provides a link to both free and commercial sources of the book (Google being a commercial service I didn't want to link to there). I'll rewrite the lead section just now and work on the rest of the article later. I'm sure I can remove Oiseaux.net as there's already another reference for the material. --teb00007 Talk • Contributions 11:35, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
You are right with linking. Unless there is free full text, just ISBN for books and doi/jstor/pmed if available for journals. No links to abstracts or Google books. Do you want the BWP stuff on crested lark? If so let me know and make sure you have email enabled (might be a couple of days) Jimfbleak - talk to me? 12:14, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
That would be great, thanks. --teb00007 Talk • Contributions 12:34, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Looking into this, the Maghreb Lark seems to be a supported split by the IOC....so some rejigging of subspecies is needed.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:10, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Do you have any references to support this? I was unable to find any useful information myself, but I will look into it in more depth later, and there were no references on the Maghreb Lark page or to support the relevant additions to Crested Lark. --teb00007 Talk • Contributions 23:02, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
If you look at the IOC page on larks, they cite Guillaumet 2005, 2006 and 2008 - this is the 2008 paper. Also, see here Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:06, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
If the authority for the Maghreb Lark is Henry Baker Tristram, then it can be wikilinked in the infbox. Snowman (talk) 09:52, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm a little confused. As far as I can see, the IOC is the only source which lists the Maghreb Lark as a distinct species. It is listed as a subspecies of the Crested Lark here (XLS document) and at the 2008 paper you cited they repeatedly refer to Galerida randonii, rather than the names G. randoni or G. macrorhyncha given by IOC (who say G. macrorhyncha is the proper name) and don't ever say whether it is a subspecies or a species in its own right. I'm new to this, but is there a source that is accepted as definitive by ornithologists that might be able to shed light on this? The source I gave says the Crested Lark's subspecies are divided into two groups, Crested Larks and Maghreb Larks with there being two subspecies of Maghreb Lark, Galerida cristata randoni and Galerida cristata macrorhyncha. I'm just confused. --teb00007 Talk • Contributions 13:35, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
The Maghreb Lark is not listed by IUCN as a separate species. Snowman (talk) 19:30, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
IUCN is tertary and there is a delay. Clements suffers from lack of regular updates. We agreed some time ago to follow IOC as a definitive/consensus source and the basis for the split looks sound. The two subspecies randonii and macrorhyncha are recognised as belonging to the MAghreb Lark - it was initially called randonii and then the other subspecific name was found to take precedence. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:25, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
My recollection is that WP Birds follows IOC for bird names and that WP Birds does not follow IOC taxonomy. WP Birds uses best evidence for taxonomy. Snowman (talk) 08:59, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
The evidence looks pretty good to me. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:37, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
I thought that the evidence, especially the DNA research, sounded quite good going on the new Wiki article on the Maghreb Lark. To reduce confusion to new editors, I mainly wanted to make it clear that WP Birds does not automatically follow IOC taxonomy, but it does follow IOC bird names (for widely accepted species). Snowman (talk) 10:11, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes - as an aside I am glad there we have some pointers to consensus. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:23, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Larks

Some shakeups expected in the lark tree http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1055790313002418 Shyamal (talk) 03:06, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

I can not read the illustrations of phylogenetic trees in the abstract, because they are too small. Does Template:Navbox Lark need any immediate changes? Snowman (talk) 09:47, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
Need to add a new genus Alaudala and move some out of the old Calandrella - a summary is on http://jboyd.net/Taxo/Alaudidae.pdf Shyamal (talk) 09:55, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
I see. It is probably best not to role it out until the navbox has been updated. Snowman (talk) 20:42, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Hawaiian bird puzzle resolved?

Thanks to the work of Storrs L. Olson a Hawaiian bird puzzle seems to be resolved. Geochen rhuax is now redescribed as Branta rhuax and the following previously unidentified bird bones are now assigned to Geochen rhuax:

Synonyms of Branta rhuax

  1. Geochen rhuax Wetmore, 1943:146.—Olson & James, 1991.—Livezey, 1996:417.
  2. ‘‘very large Hawaii goose’’ Olson & James, 1991.—James, 1995:98.
  3. ‘‘prehistorically extinct flightless goose’’ Giffin, 1993:1.
  4. ‘‘large, flightless goose’’ Sorenson et al., 1999:2192.
  5. ‘‘giant Hawaii goose’’ Paxinos et al., 2002:1399.
  6. ‘‘flightless giant Hawaii goose Branta sp.’’ Iwaniuk et al., 2004.
  7. ‘‘Branta n. sp.’’ Giffin, 2009

Reference: Olson, Storrs L. (2013). "Hawaii's first fossil bird: history, geological age, and taxonomic status of the extinct goose Geochen rhuax Wetmore (Aves: Anatidae).". Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington (Washington: Biological Society of Washington) 126 (2): 161–168. Retrieved 13 July 2013.

If anyone is interested in this paper I can send you a PDF (Drop me a Wikimail with your email address) --Melly42 (talk) 11:37, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Does the paper give an estimated age for the subfossil material? Maias (talk) 14:31, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
from the abstract

Although the age of the fossil was previously undetermined, recent radiocarbon dates establish that the age of the lava flow immediately overlying the bones was 9170 ± 100 yrs b.p.

. That means that this species might have became extinct in the early Holocene --Melly42 (talk) 14:54, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. Maias (talk) 00:49, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
I believe that 'synonym' in the sense used in Wikipedia taxoboxes covers such terms that have been used in scientific literature as convenient referents prior to formal description and publication. However, if there is a consensus by project editors not to treat them so in bird taxoboxes, they can be removed. Maias (talk) 04:57, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure it only refers to taxonomic junior synonyms and outdated binomial combinations, otherwise we would have alternate common names there as well, which we don't. FunkMonk (talk) 05:17, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
I think that what I am referring to are known as 'manuscript names', i.e. names referring to putatative taxa which are mentioned in a paper (with enough detail to avoid ambiguity) prior to formal description, maybe acting as placeholders. I have no problem with removing them if that is we want. Maias (talk) 12:37, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
Taxonomic manuscript names would be nomina nuda, and still be in the form of binomials. Such are acceptable, but per definition, the taxobox, should not include common names under synonyms, that's what the name field is for. FunkMonk (talk) 03:45, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
Manuscript names are neither nomina nuda nor common names; they are labels used for convenience to identify particular specimens or fossil material until they are formally described. Maias (talk) 11:31, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
In any case, they are not "formal". FunkMonk (talk) 10:41, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Quality

I was reading WP:NOTDONE, which I recommend everyone does if they haven't already as the author makes some very good points about editing Wikipedia. After reading it, I noticed that 72.4% of bird-related articles are stub class and 22.3% are start class meaning just 5.2% of the articles are class C or better. The featured bird articles are excellent (I haven't read all 115, but I'm assuming they're consistently good) but it seems to me like if we aimed for C class instead of FA status there'd be a lot more useful articles, which in turn would be a lot more helpful to the readers of Wikipedia. I'd like to propose we try to get just 5% (583)or even 10% (1166) of the stub class articles to class C. It would vastly improve Wikipedia. --teb00007 Talk • Contributions 08:46, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I quite agree and it probably also helps to prioritize within major geographies (of potential users) and focus on the most often encountered/charismatic birds. I guess there are regions in which the coverage is deficient in general - South America, SE Asia and Central Africa perhaps. Would be good to get a geographical breakup of bird article quality and article size/image statistics. Shyamal (talk) 09:40, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Different people work differently here. Some prefer to concentrate on an article and get it up to a high standard and others do a little editing to a lot of pages. The WP project has recently done quite a lot of work on consistency with IOC names and also adding navboxes and this applies to 1000s of pages. I would have thought that updating taxonomy on out-of-date pages would be a priority, but this is difficult and often requires specialist knowledge and knowing the latest literature. I think that the relatively few editors here chip away at over 10,000 bird species pages making useful additions and amendments on the pages or tasks that they are interested in as well as reverting vandalism. Snowman (talk) 12:34, 2 August 2013 (UTC) 10:12, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
I'd imagine specific editors are more interested in some bird groups than others, so these may only improve articles within a narrow field. FunkMonk (talk) 10:39, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
The work that those editors do is, clearly, valuable. Obviously all editors are different. I like to work on a clearly defined project, while others like to make useful contributions wherever they can. I think editors like me, who want a clear goal to work towards, would find a project like this useful. --teb00007 Talk • Contributions 11:07, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
If you can identify a particular task that you are interested in, then you might be able to start a collaboration or at least get some useful opinions from people that edit bird pages. Sometimes other editors might disagree with what you are trying to do, so I would say that it is best to discuss a big editing project or a big task here first to get a consensus about the amendments and things are likely to move along better with less opposition. Snowman (talk) 12:34, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Early on on wikipedia I warmed to the idea of Good/Featured Articles as they act as stable versions that one can refer back to in case of vandalism or article erosion. I also had an idea that once a bird becomes a Featured Article it can serve as a template for others and we can improve whole series of birds - there are 'runs' of similar species with Featured Articles. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:16, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Lets perhaps just take this one article at a time instead of just saying "Hey, edit anything below a C-Class!" Maybe we should split this into groups, one group does one article and the other group does the other. Then when that group is finished the article they take on the next article. This way many people are working on one article at once but we get two articles completed. Rainbow Shifter (talk) 15:49, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Most of the GA/FA articles are for species, only a handful are for taxa above genus level. If we follow this suggestion, perhaps we should ensure before anything else that all families and orders have a C class article. That would also give us a manageable target of a couple of hundred articles, some of which will be OK anyway. Where do non-bird taxon articles (ornithologists, bits of bird anatomy, nature reserves, parasites etc.) fit into this?
Sigh - enthusiasm really makes up a big part of this. I do what I do for fun. Collaborations are good for the trickier articles, so maybe we should revisit them more often....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 15:38, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
(Comment) I've been looking for ways to get back into editing bird articles (having not been around for a few years), and if someone wanted to organize a specific collaboration I'd be up for it. Cheers, Corvus coronoides talk 15:42, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Many of the start-class articles are more like C-class (C-class was not introduced too long ago and many articles were rated beforehand). Just scanning family articles, Calcariidae, Cisticolidae and Bushshrike are sitters for a 5x expand and DYK. Right now, Tinamou is our current collaboration and anyone is free to nominate one to slot in after the preceding one gets GA status. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 15:49, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
NB: Am expanding Calcariidae for DYK - quite an interesting little group. Anyone is free to chip in Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 17:07, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
chipping in. Cheers, Corvus coronoides talk 21:23, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Cool - that one is 5x expanded. Its taxonomic status is so recent there's not a huge amount out there that talks about the group as it is so new...Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:21, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
It has been expanded, but I think the article contains inconsistencies, over-inclusive generalistions, ambiguities, and errors that would currently exclude it from being a DKY on the main page. Snowman (talk) 12:24, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
I agree that we have had trouble finding a catchy hook. I don't think I agree with your view of the article. Can you point out exactly which sentences in the article you think are problematic? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:44, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
I am surprised that you ask that, because I have commented on some issues that I have with the article in the DYK nomination discussion, which is transcluded to the article's talk page. Snowman (talk) 12:50, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Right - who's up for a 5x expand of Bushshrike then? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:28, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Sure. I found a book with some info but probably won't get to it for a few hours. Dinner time here.Corvus coronoides talk 22:33, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
I'll have a flick through my books, see if there's anything I can add. --teb00007 Talk • Contributions 00:08, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
Me too. Rainbow Shifter (talk) 21:27, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
I haven't got anything on Bushshrikes as most of my books are on either British or European birds (or both). I will be editing Lark, though, if anyone would like to help. --teb00007 Talk • Contributions 23:00, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

There are some other pages which are stubby stubs - many genera which have lots of photos, so Charmosyna and Hanging parrot. The latter is good as the sleeping upside down is an interesting hook. Snowman if you want to expand that one then we can do that. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:42, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

It is raining today, but it is summer here and I have lots of out-of-door tasks to do before winter weather, so I would be reluctant to take on Wiki editing commitments until we have cold weather and dark nights here. Nevertheless, it sounds fun making some DKYs for parrots. Snowman (talk) 19:33, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Maybe another category to look at is high-importance stubs Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:44, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

AOU changes

The AOU has recently published taxonomy changes. I have not yet found the documents directly from them, but here is something from the ABA. The changes do affect some South American species........ [14] Pvmoutside (talk) 15:49, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Looks like all of the changes deal w/ the Americas, except for some sandpipers in monotypic genera that are being merged into Calidris.......Ruff, Buff-breasted Sandpiper, Surfbird, Spoon-billed Sandpiper, and Broad-billed Sandpiper are all moving to Calidris per the AOU, also Barolo Shearwater has been officially recognized.....Any thoughts before I move the species pages?......Pvmoutside (talk) 19:24, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
Ruff, Spoon-billed Sandpiper, and Barolo Shearwater are not primarily NAm birds. At least for these, I'd be inclined to wait and see whether European taxonomists follow these changes Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:33, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Jim...Looks like Barolo Shearwater has already been changed, but I'll leave the sandpiper species pages alone until the IOU decides to update them.....Pvmoutside (talk) 15:01, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Classification headache - separate Cracticidae and Artamidae vs combined Artamidae

Right, I am writing about some of these families and have come across a snag. Australia's definitive checklist regards these two families as a single family on page 35. Whereas the IOC regards them as separate. This page (though not official) provides a good overview, and summarises the papers to research. I have been writing about the clade Malaconotoidea.

The issue is that if the families are separate, then there is a headache as to what family to list the Mottled Whistler and boatbills under as they appear to lie within the expanded family but it is unclear to which branch they are more closely related to. If we have a single Artamidae it is easier to list them - what do others think? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:32, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

I am inclined to go with an expanded Artamidae, with the boatbills in their own subfamily Machaerirhynchinae. The evidence seems to suggest that the Mottled Whistler should have its own subfamily (Rhagologinae?), but since we cannot decide that ourselves it can stay in the boatbill subfamily for the time being. Maias (talk) 03:55, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Maps

A wide variety of colours are used in our bird maps, but the most common (at least in FAs) appear to be    Breeding summer visitor,    Resident year-round,   Winter visitor. These are reasonably close to the HBW standard. Is it worth adding the colour boxes or code to the project page's guidance on maps, or is that over-prescriptive? Jimfbleak - talk to me? 08:37, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

It could be a recommendation but hard to enforce. I've added a lot of maps that I've found on commons used in non-English WPs. I've used Freezerware dropper to get the hex colour values from the maps and added colour keys. I think it's better to have a non-conforment map than none. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 16:35, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
It's relatively easy to change the colours used on the maps to standard colours. Providing the existing maps are shared under a license that allows derivatives, there shouldn't be any problems. I'd be happy to do this, but wouldn't be able to until September. I would suggest changing the colour of resident all year round to    and for winter visitors to    as the darker colours will be easier to distinguish. Certain visual impairments may cause the yellow and lighter shade of green to look the same. --teb00007 Talk • Contributions 17:33, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
The darker, more subdued colours are certainly easier on the eyes and I have been using a green similar to that one. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:06, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
I'm not wedded to the colours I suggested, just that they seem to be the most common. Going back to the original query, do we want to add colour boxes modified as per Teb's suggestion to the project page? If it's that easy to change map colours, that would be good (it's tricky for me with my limited software and skills)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimfbleak (talk • contribs) 06:22, 2 August 2013
I'd certainly be in favour of that. Anything that makes the encyclopedia more consistent is surely a good thing, and this would improve the consistency of the bird articles at least. As for the existing maps, you'll notice I said "relatively" easy. It mainly depends on the file type. SVG files are much easier to edit that JPEGs or PNGs. Although some SVGs are overly complex and require more work. All my graphics software is on my other laptop, which I left at uni over the summer, but I could start work on this as soon as I go back, providing everyone else wants me to. And if anyone else can help, the more the merrier :) --teb00007 Talk • Contributions 08:18, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
I realize that the main question related to the colours, but if an actual standard is suggested for this project, the summer/winter terminology deserves a comment. It's fine when dealing with species that stay in one hemisphere. Otherwise, the problem with the suggested terminology is that it is strongly US/Canada/Euro-centric; one may argue that it is an example of a systemic bias. "Our" summer is often "their" winter. Anything that breeds in the Northern Hemisphere and spends the non-breeding season in the Southern, or vice versa, will usually be in both places during the summer. The Arctic Tern is just one of the numerous species that breeds in the N.Hem. summer, and spends (for the most part) the non-breeding season in the S.Hem. summer. Christmas in New Zealand in the summer, or was it winter? I also note that HBW does not use the winter/summer terminology on their maps (HBW vol. 1, subsection "Maps", page 29, quote "these colours should not be interpreted as summer and winter distributions"), instead explaining that they relate strictly to breeding/non-breeding. 62.107.194.166 (talk) 11:18, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

I've been having a look at some of the distribution maps currently on Wikipedia, and I think we could do with another colour for introduced range. I'd also agree with the above comment and suggest we use the following standard colours/descriptions:

  •    Breeding visitor
  •    Non-breeding visitor
  •    Resident
  •    Introduced range

If that's acceptable to everyone, I'll get started changing the colours of the existing maps. If anyone has any requests for maps to be updated, just let me know here or on my talk page. --teb00007 Talk • Contributions 22:29, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree with a colour for introduced range...just that that red is a little ....bright...sure you wouldn't be happier with a burnt sienna, tan or more muted colour? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:46, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I think that the red is much too bright. The red could dominate the map. Snowman (talk) 07:40, 8 August 2013 (UTC)


Merging dubious parrot

We have an article about the Réunion Parrot (Necropsittacus? borbonicus) which is considered extremely dubious, and nothing but a paragraph has ever been published about it in the relevant works. Would anyone object if I merged it into the Rodrigues Parrot (Necropsittacus rodericanus), since Necropsittacus is the genus it was originally allied with? It should never be anything but a stub anyway, but the article is currently rather long and messy, and it seems the writer was carried away with original interpretations (just like Rothschild, who the article critisises!), as much of the content is not even stated explicitly in the sources used, but seems inferred from them. No one accepts it as valid, and nothing new will ever be learned about it. If done, I'll of course add all known info about the entity into the Rodrigues Parrot article. FunkMonk (talk) 19:58, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Dubois, who wrote about the Reunion Parrot, was a good observer. He described the Reunion Ibis and it was centuries later when bones of an Ibis was found on the Island. Who knows now what parrot he was describing? I think that merging these two "taxa" is making too many assumptions. Many hypothetical species have their own pages. I think the Réunion Parrot should have its own page. Snowman (talk) 21:40, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
Yes, the problem is more Rothschild's interpretations than Dubois' original observation. It has been suggested he saw some kind of freed captive parrot, and this would of course undermine the Necropsittacus identification. In any case, the Réunion Parrot article is problematical due to the way it is written, and much of the fluff should be cut out. FunkMonk (talk) 21:42, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
I think we have here a similar problem as with the Reunion Parakeet/Mauritius Parakeet. At the current status I would keep the two articles, unless there is evidence that the Reunion Parrot and the Rodrigues Parrot are the same taxon. --Melly42 (talk) 06:25, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
I'm thinking whether an article that short could be a GA. There's no lower size limit, as long as the sources are comprehensively covered, so I guess it could, when cleaned up. FunkMonk (talk) 11:28, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
It could not be a GA. If it is part of an Wikipedia:Featured topics then it can be included as an audited article of limited subject matter or inherent instability. Snowman (talk) 18:41, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
I've seen shorter articles become GAs. - The Bushranger One ping only 18:44, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
Shorter than the Réunion Parrot article? Are they still GAs? Snowman (talk) 19:53, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
If Abuwtiyuw can be an FA, shorter articles can likely be GAs. The length is not the issue, it is that the topic is well covered and sourced. Info that is unknown is of course not expected to be added to an article. I remember you opposed a GAN once[15] because you said not enough was known about the bird, but that is not how it works. As long as what is known is included, that's what matters. FunkMonk (talk) 21:01, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
Yes and yes. - The Bushranger One ping only 21:12, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
Please to not use easter egg wiki-links, because they are not in line with the Wiki guidelines. Snowman (talk) 14:12, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
Just to be clear, WP:EASTEREGG only applies to article space. Parsecboy (talk) 18:36, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
Readable prose size; Abuwtiyuw = 820 words, BGM-75 AICBM 316 = words, Réunion Parrot = 402 words. Someone has questioned why "BGM AICBM" is a GA and so do I, so have started a community GAR. Snowman (talk) 14:12, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
It appears size is not an issue after all.[16] FunkMonk (talk) 13:14, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

New template "taxaut" ?

I posted thhe following also at Talk:TOL, but this Talk might be more active so I'll put it here, too:

"Hi,

I've been thinking about the problem of inconsistencies between taxon authors in taxoboxes vs other occurrences (in lists, in pagetext). Like missing parentheses, wrong dates/spellings (diacritics loss etc), incomplete multiauthor lists... This might be very easy to solve by a template:

We have one certain location where to store and reference taxon/author data - the taxobox. And there, these data are stored after "[rank]_author =", e.g "species_authority =" . So it could simply be read from there and inserted automatically in the list/page text, no?

Format would be something like:

[taxon] {{taxaut|#|pgname}}. The parameters # and pgname are both optional.

Works as follows:

1. Take as many of the preceding words as specified by "#". I.e., for species # = 2, for sspp # = 3 (animals) or 4 (plants) etc. If no "#" is given, use 1. Dismiss any wikicode found.

2. Use the remaining words as Wikipedia page title. Go to that page, following any redirects you find.

(2a. if a "pgname" is given, use that as page title.)

3. Read from the taxobox there all data between "[rank]_author =" and (presumably) the next | not between [[ ]]. Remove any reftags, anchored links, or similar fancy stuff and internal links. Replace "check", "cn" and similar tags with "(?)" or such. [The author/date info is often heavily linked, annotated etc. in taxoboxes. Preserving any links to author pages and maybe dates would be nice. A simple reminder if the info is disputed would be nice too. But most other things would break if we simply copied them to another page.]

4. Display the remaining data here (in small script or whatever formatting we like).

(Troublehooting:

A. If 2./2a. leads to no page at all, display "Please add" or similar annotation. [For very incomplete/basic lists, the template should not be used anyway. Such a notification might be useful though for partially-done lists.]

B. If 2./2a. leads to a page without taxobox, display "No taxobox found" annotation. [All valid taxon pages should have at least a basic taxobox.]

C. If 2./2a. leads to a page without taxobox, display "No taxobox found" annotation. [Many taxon pages do not have this information; just leaving it blank gives unobtrusive note that it's missing.] )

That would probably not be too hard to write if you code templates at least occasionally, but I don't do that. Someone here might. Do you think it's feasible? It would serve us a huge load of neverending (because the data keep being changed, deleted, restored etc) maintenance work."

I'd like to do any discussion at Talk:TOL tho, so more might participate. Thanks for your attention. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 22:31, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Woodlark

I've nominated the Woodlark article as a GA. If anyone has the time to review the article, I'd really appreciate it. --teb00007 Talk • Contributions 17:18, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

I supplied Teb with some of his sources, and I thought about picking this up, but I've a lot on at present and there is too much that needs to be done for a quick fix. I might come back to this in the future, in which case your comments will be a good starting point, but not now, thanks. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:53, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
Alright. I'll give him a bit more time. FunkMonk (talk) 14:55, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Rufous-crowned Sparrow

Anyone know where user:Rufous-crowned Sparrow went? He has not edited since May, leaving a FAC (Choiseul Pigeon) to fail, and abandoning some other running projects as well. I imagine someone would not just leave a FAC without announcing if it was due to a Wikibreak? His FAC was pretty close, so was a shame. I've tried to email him, but no answer. FunkMonk (talk) 22:38, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

My guess (and hope) is that he started it during a school break and has since gone back to putting all his time into academics. Shyamal (talk) 06:57, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi all:

New to editing Wikipedia here. The Teahouse Talk sent me here with this question:

I'm interested in cleaning up species pages. Like removing double spaces, standardizing units of measure, etc. when I see it. I also had the idea of put a standard set of external links for each species. Currently some pages have no links, some have a couple, and they're all formatted slightly differently. I thought that a set of links to the following would be good.

  • Avibase
  • BirdLife
  • Internet Bird Collection
  • VIREO
  • xeno-canto
  • Cornell's All About Birds (for N.Am. species)
  • Cornell's Neotropical Birds (for neotropical species)

Good idea? Bad idea?

Other links?

Thanks, Stongey Stongey (talk) 13:55, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

In some cases, if the articles are really comprehensive, all info in external links is redundant. In stubs, on the other hand, it can be helpful. FunkMonk (talk) 14:23, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
Thanks FunkMonk. I agree about redundancy. I was approaching it more from the stubs angle, but also a consistency angle. Some articles have a BirdLife link, for example, as a reference and some as an external link. Some format the BirdLife link as simply "BirdLife", some as "species factsheet at BirdLife". Stongey (talk) 17:04, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
That much inconsistency is fine. BirdLife factsheets can be used as references or external links; it's good to describe what exactly links are, so "BirdLife species factsheet" is probably better. As far as redundancy, I don't think there are many pages where there isn't an external link with better photos or sound recordings. External links are for stuff that can't be on Wikipedia (unencyclopedic information, non-free photos) as well as stuff that isn't at the moment.
Following Chuunen Baka's lead, I created the Template:BirdLife, but this is for external link use, not references.Stongey (talk) 14:14, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
My opinion: Most of these websites are useful on most articles, and a lot of articles could use more external links, but we shouldn't link them automatically or anything. It's a good list of pages that are available for all species, but there are plenty of good sites just for a region or something. I'd try not to use too many external links, so people can find useful external content quickly. If you have a page (the Internet Bird Collection often does this) that has a lot of pictures, video, and sound recordings, you might not need to link the xeno-canto page or a smaller gallery. So if you're adding 'standard' links to a lot of pages, at least take a quick look at how useful they are. Also, I don't think Avibase is ever worth linking to on a species article, all it has these other sites don't have is information on classifications that never explains anything, and foreign-language names. —innotata 03:53, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
Good idea in principal, but I agree that Avibase should never be used (it claims copyright on material where it is highly unlikely it owns the copyright, and has little added value). Birdlife is often used as a references for IUCN status, and obviously can't be used as an EL where that is the case. I'd object to Cornell and other sites where most of the content is behind paywalls, we shouldn't be promoting commercial enterprises. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:26, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
Cornell's content is behind a paywall? I've never had to pay to get the content that I'm interested in (fieldmarks, similar species), but the point about not promoting paywall websites is well-taken. I was most interested in the Neotropical site from Cornell since it has lot of species accounts for birds that are stubs in Wikipedia (Dusky Hummingbird, for example). I'm liking this discussion, BTW. Stongey (talk) 13:19, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
Birds of North America is behind a paywall, All About Birds and the Neotropical birds site are not. —innotata 13:33, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
So the non-paywall Neotropical site would be okay to include? Opinions? I think it would be worthwhile. Should paywall links be removed if found? (remember, newbie editor, looking for guidance...)Stongey (talk) 14:14, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
personally, I wouldn't link to paywall sites, abstract only-journals (except doi/jstor/pmed numbers) or Google book extracts in References or list the paywall sites in ELs. This appears to be current practice at FA/GA too. You could remove existing links, but if someone objects, just walk away, not worth an edit-war Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:10, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
Yes, all of Cornell's free sites are great to link. You can use paywalled sites for references (definitely do not remove paywall links used as references, apart from the types Jim mentioned), but not normally as external links. External links should be useful and accessible to readers. —innotata 21:17, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
if Avibase is so poor, why don't you put it on the blacklist? I think, there are many WP articles which link to Avibase. --Melly42 (talk) 07:33, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
I think Avibase is well intentioned, and not overtly commercial, unlike, say, Surfbirds, and I wouldn't remove it as an existing link. I just don't think it should be seen as default EL, which is what we are discussing. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:46, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
oh I understand. By the way the newly launched HBW Alive is a similar case to Cornell. Due to the fact that it is behind a paywall it is not useful instead it advisable to refer to the respective page in the HBW print issue --Melly42 (talk) 08:02, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
I'm a fan of Avibase simply because I edit elsewhere where Clements 2005 is the standard list. It is amazing how much variation there is in naming. Given that some people on WP seem to think there is one true taxonomy and nothing else exists, an Avibase link is quite useful. But actually, I think it is better to use it as ref for the taxonomic synonyms in the taxobox and to ref alternate common names. For that purpose I created the Template:Avibase. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 08:03, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
Links to paywalled sites should be kept if they are useful. Some people do have access to paywalled sites. Nikswerdhond (talk) 13:24, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
By definition, they are not useful as standard external links if the vast majority of readers can't see them. Shouldn't give links to commercial sites anyway 06:12, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
Why shouldn't we link to commercial sites if they have useful information? Most reliable sources are commercial. Nikswerdhond (talk) 14:48, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
Because we are an encycopaedia, not a sales agency for commercial interest. You can have a journal/book etc as a reference, but you should not link to any page which says, in effect, you can buy this for £20. This is why we do not accept Amazon as RS Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:34, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Locked Pages

Some pages need moving due to species splits, etc.....

Thank-you.......Pvmoutside (talk) 03:13, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:09, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

perching duck

(1) The article perching duck says the animals are paraphyletic (not all that bad) and then says all the included branches are more closely related to other non-perching families, which means to call them not para-, but poly-phyletic. Can someone with the proper knowledge pick one of the two? (20 If this is the wrong venue please link to the proper one. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 04:49, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Birds for identification (146)

Why a juv? Isn't this an adult male a bit the worse for wear? But I'm not sure how you separate the Scarlet Robin (like this one) which also occur in Tasmania. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 16:12, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
Could be a roughed up male Scarlet. The question is, is it a scarlet or not? I think so at this point. JJ Harrison (talk) 01:27, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
After examining the Field Guide to the Birds of Australia and several other online pictures I believe it is a Flame Robin. I base this on the fact that the white wing bar does not reach the leading edge of the wing. In Scarlet Robins it appears that the bar goes all the way to the edge. There seems to be very few other differences between these two species. Dger (talk) 02:23, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
Looks like Scarlet to me. HANZAB suggests combination of black (rather than grey) upperparts, head, neck and throat are diagnostic of adult male. Maias (talk) 03:13, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
That is correct. Flame Robins do not have black throats. This is a Scarlet Robin. And it's not a juv. Natureguy1980 (talk) 04:20, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
A couple of brown feathers in the wing suggest retained juvenile feathers, making it an immature rather than adult female.Maias (talk) 01:55, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Australian Golden Whistler moved to File:Pachycephala pectoralis -Wollery, Denmark, Western Australia, Australia -juvenile-8.jpg on Commons and description enhanced. Is it a juvenile female? Snowman (talk) 08:00, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
I suspect you can't tell the difference at that age. Maias (talk) 12:37, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Female Fidecula aren't easy, especially when you can't see the wing properly. Nothing to suggest otherwise, and given the location it's virtually certain that it's what it's claimed to be. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 19:38, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
Red-crested Turacos? Maias (talk) 01:26, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
Ah, seems correct. The one on the right doesn't seem to have much of a crest, juvenile? Female? FunkMonk (talk) 02:27, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
Patchy red on shoulder and relatively bright bill indicate immature (older than juvenile) male. Maias (talk) 11:15, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
I think that the black in the wing feathers may also indicate a transitional stage of immature plumage. Image description on Commons enhanced. Snowman (talk) 12:18, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
Confirmed. Looks like a perfect match for an adult male. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 14:29, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Selected for the infobox image on en Wiki species page (without implying corroboration). Snowman (talk) 08:35, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
I have no idea about the region and this is entirely based on Internet research - based on lists for the region and some images it seems like it would be - http://ibc.lynxeds.com/photo/white-browed-coucal-centropus-superciliosus/rare-sight-open-shy-bird Centropus superciliosus burchelli Shyamal (talk) 03:50, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
I am somewhat confused with various systems of classification, which have split the species and others which have lumped. Also, en-Wiki has lumped and Commons has split. My Illustrated Guide to the Birds of South Africa has split the species. It does not have the White-browed Coucal mapped in the Kruger National Park, but it does have Burchell's Coucal (Centropus superciliosus burchelli also called Centropus burchelli) in the park. Any comments on classification before I rename the file? Snowman (talk) 09:02, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
Odd. The IOC have a split C. super. and C. burch. [18] yet WP has a redirect from Burchell's Coucal to White-browed Coucal. Shouldn't it have its own article? Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 08:23, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
IUCN have it as one species. Snowman (talk) 15:52, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/References says IOC is the de facto standard. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 16:58, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
It means the Wiki uses the IOC bird names. It is commonly misunderstood that the Wiki also uses the IOC taxonomy, but it does not. The Wiki uses the best available evidence for bird taxonomy. Snowman (talk) 17:36, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
Photo appears on lots of other Wikis' articles on Circaetus gallicus. Chuunen Baka (talk • contribs) 17:17, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
Yes, but it looks darker than in other images of that species on Commons. Snowman (talk) 09:02, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
Yes, just left nest by the look of it, but even at that age it shows the pale underparts and suggestion of spotting you would expect Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:23, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
If the location is correct, there's nothing else it can be. SEO is quite rare in south Arabia, but nothing sufficiently similar occurs at all. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:18, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Pronunciation queries

Could I have informed opinions on pronunciation of the following please:

Fay-as Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:30, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
FAY-uhz Natureguy1980 (talk) 00:27, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

FAY-uhz. First syllable rhymes with day, jay, and hay. Natureguy1980 (talk) 21:00, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

  • Desertas Petrel - Dez-ERT-ass, Dess-ERT-ass, Dez-ERT-az or Dess-ERT-az? (and if the stress in the right place?)
Dez-ERT-ass, but less stressed than in English Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:30, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Trindade Petrel - Trin-dayd, Trin-dad, Trin-daddy, Trin-da-day, Tree-dayd, Treen-dad, Treen-daddy or Treen-da-day? (and which syllable has the stress?)
Given that Trinidade is a Brazilian island, I'd recommend something like "treen-ee-DAHD-jee" or "trin-uh-DAHD-gee". (The suffix -de is pronounced "jee" in Brazilian Portuguese.) Natureguy1980 (talk) 20:55, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Sabine's Gull - Sab-eye-n's, Sab-ee-n's, Say-b-eye-n's, Say-b-ee-n's, Sab-eye-n-uh's, Sab-ee-n-uh's, Say-b-eye-n-uh's or Say-b-ee-n-uh's?
SAB-inz Jimfbleak -

talk to me? 13:30, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

SABB-inz. First syllable rhymes with fab, tab, and jab. Natureguy1980 (talk) 21:00, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
The OED says /ˈsæbaɪn/, that is, what you wrote as SAB-eye-n (with a /z/, of course). —JerryFriedman (Talk) 21:07, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
THAY-er. Rhymes with "mayor". Natureguy1980 (talk) 21:00, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
First syllable rhymes with moon, June, and spoon. Natureguy1980 (talk) 21:00, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
OHL-rog. Long O. Natureguy1980 (talk) 00:27, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
I've only ever heard BELL-churz. Natureguy1980 (talk) 00:27, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
99% of the time I hear "HEER-muhnz". I've rarely heard "HEER-mahnz". Natureguy1980 (talk) 00:27, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Heuglin's Gull - Hyoo-glin's, Hyoo-gleen's, Hoy-glin's, Hoy-gleen's, Hay-oo-glin's or Hay-oo-gleen's?
I've only heard "HYOO-glinz". Natureguy1980 (talk) 00:27, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Vega Gull - Vay-guh, Vay-juh, Vee-guh, Vee-juh or something else?
VEH-guh, like the star. Rhymes with mega. I've never come across a word where "ga" is pronounced as "juh". Natureguy1980 (talk) 00:24, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. SP-KP (talk) 11:41, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Great stuff. I will add these into the relevant articles. SP-KP (talk) 16:24, 27 August 2013 (UTC) Can I check one of the above? Trindade has no vowel between the n and the d: so is it Treen-DAHD-jee not Treen-EE-dahd-jee ? SP-KP (talk) 16:33, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Too true! I have never noticed this! Treen-DAHD-jee makes sense, then. Natureguy1980 (talk) 21:49, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
  1. ^ a b Steve N. G. Howell (30 March 1995). A Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-854012-0.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Cite error: The named reference RaptorsWorld was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Thiollay, J. M. (1994). Harpy Eagle (Harpia harpyja). p. 191 in: del Hoy, J, A. Elliott, & J. Sargatal, eds. (1994). Handbook of the Birds of the World. Vol. 2. New World Vultures to Guineafowl. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona. ISBN 84-87334-15-6
  4. ^ Sagip Eagle. Gbgm-umc.org. Retrieved on 2012-08-21.
  5. ^ Smithsonian miscellaneous collections (1862). Archive.org. Retrieved on 2013-03-09.
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